Transferring Itunes songs to External Hard Drive

[blink182macx]

I recently bought a Western Digital Elements external hard drive i've converted it to run on my macbook pro. But i was wondering if there was a way to transfer my itunes library onto my external hard drive without having the problem having to plug in my external hdd everytime i want to listen to music.

Comments will be very helpful.

 

[stridemat]

How would your Mac 'connect' to the songs??? Or are you on about a wireless solution?

 

[blink182macx]

My external hard drive (western digital elements) is connected to my computer by a 2.0 usb connection from the external hard drive to my computer. I have the ex-hd as my time machine. But i was wondering if i back up my library if there was a way to back it up that i could listen to my music on my laptop when i disconnect my ex-hd from my laptop

 

[mulo]

if you can hook it up to your router you could make a wireless solution

 

[stridemat]

Im sorry, but I don't get what your trying to do

 

[blink182macx]

Ok. My Western Digital Elements external hard drive is set up as my back-up drive time machine on my macbook pro. I've looked at video's and through some threads that when you transfer/copy your itunes music library to your external hard drive that your external hard drive has to be connected to listen to your music. Is there a way i could back up my music to my external hard drive, but, when i disconnected the external hard drive from my laptop that i could still listen to my music on my laptop

 

[Eddyisgreat]

My head just exploded.

I can't tell what you want to do.

If you merely want to backup your itunes library to the external disk, then time machine is doing what you desire.

If you want to move your iTunes library off to your external drive, you can either reconsolidate the library to a seperate partition on the external, or you can create a symlink that stores just the music files on your external drive while leaving your library attatched. This way, iTunes won't complain everytime you start up the app without your drive connection (in the case of iPhones and such).

If you want your entire library stored on the external and then duplicated back to your internal drive...
//head explodes again

edit:it sounds like you just want time machine to backup your files while leaving the master copies on your internal HD so you can listen to them whenever you like.
Time machine already does this. Basically, you can ignore it's function-that is to say that whatever Time machine is backing up will have no influence on how you already utilize your box, so just having time machine enabled won't make iTunes ask for the drive. iTunes won't even know it exists.

 

[blink182macx]

--EddyisGreat

I want to back up my music so that if my computer ever crashes it's there. But i also want to be able to listen to my music if i don't have my external hard drive connected.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

o ya. See my above edit. It's all good-time machine will take care of it and since you will still have your master copies on your internal disk nothing will change.

Kudos for considering backups before something happens unlike many here

 

[blink182macx]

----EddyisGreat

so essentially your saying i can drag a folder with all my music into my external hard drive, but when i disconnect my external hard drive i can still listen to my music on my laptop

 

[iBrody]

If you are using Time Machine to 'back up' your MBP HDD then the original music will still on your MBP HDD even after the back up.

...unless you have manually deleted all of your music from your MBP after the back up!

I once contemplated transferring my iTunes folder to an external HDD then plugging the HDD into my AirPort Extreme to listen to my music wirelessly rather than from the MBP HDD, but I heard that the AirPort Extreme is not very good for this purpose and you are better off using a Time Capsule set up.

Is this what you meant?

 

[Eddyisgreat]

----EddyisGreat

so essentially your saying i can drag a folder with all my music into my external hard drive, but when i disconnect my external hard drive i can still listen to my music on my laptop

Nope. You don't even have to go that far.

You as a user have no need to touch /(username)/Music/iTunes (which is where all your stuff is stored). If you are using Time machine, it takes care of all this stuff for you. You don't need to copy anything manually, at all.

It's still there on your external disk , if time machine is enabled of course, but you won't interact with this disk much if at all.

And yes, using this setup you can still listen to your music w/o the external disk attached.

 

[iVeBeenDrinkin']

So, you want to backup the music that's on your MBP to an external HDD, then listen to the music that's on the external HDD wirelessly, right? Yes, you can do this, but why? Unless you're deleting the music off of your MBP, It's easier to play the files that are already on the MBP HDD.

 

[iBrody]

IF you have deleted the music from your MBP HDD then I don't know how you would expect to still be able to listen to the music once you disconnect the external HDD. This is what your post seems to imply.

If you are looking for a way to preserve iTunes and all your music so you can drag and drop on to any mac, then you could always format an external HDD, then 'copy and paste' your whole iTunes directory into the external HDD, this is what I have done. Then you can copy and paste the directory back from your external HDD to any mac at any time in the future without it being embedded into Time Machine.

 

[blink182macx]

--Eddyisgreat

Alright i'm glad that time machine has done all the work for me and that i don't have to physically back up all my music to the external hard drive.


--ibrody

yes my question was if my original tracks would be on my hard drive if time capsule has copies of it

 

[iBrody]

--ibrody

yes my question was if my original tracks would be on my hard drive if time capsule has copies of it

Aah cool.

 

[BaffledPaul]

iTunes to external hd

Help! I'm a complete technophobe, not sure if this is even where I post this. Here goes, I've moved my iTunes library to an external hard drive as itunes is taking over my pc, changed the path as instructed to 'k' the hard drive, and everything has gone, 900 albums as well as everything else! Nightmare! I've gone back into the advanced menu to reset the path back to it's original setting and still nothing! Please help!