Apple TV/External Hard drive Question

Here's my problem...
Next year I will going away to college. I have a relitively large DVD collection, and don't really want to take all of the physical DVDs with me. i've figured out how to get the DVDs onto my Macbook Pro using Handbreak. The problem is, I won't have enough space to do my whole DVD library.
Would it be possible to store all of my movies on an external hard drive, and keep all of my music still on the Mac? I know that iTunes would only allow me to watch the movies when my HD was plugged in, but I don't want to have to keep my HD plugged in to listen to my music. If all of this is possible, would the Apple TV still recognize my iTunes movies with the external harddrive plugged in? I hope all of this makes sense.
In short... I want my movies to work on my Apple TV (haven't bought one yet... not going to buy if this wouldn't work), but don't want them to stay on my Mac.
Any help or suggestions would be great

Yes it will work fine. In iTunes go to preferences -> Advanced -> then de tick 'Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library'. Then go to add to library (in the file menu) and navigate to your folder on your external HDD with your films and add it. All your films will be added to iTunes but iTunes looks to the external HDD to read them.

Similar Messages

Using an External Hard Drive Question

Sorry if this is such a green question but.....
Can you play back music and movies from an external hard drive through Apple TV or do they have to be physically need to be on the Apple TV HD?
Also, Is there a way to play what is "steaming" on a MBP to the TV through Apple TV?
Thanks in advance guys.

JayMacApple wrote:
Can you play back music and movies from an external hard drive through Apple TV or do they have to be physically need to be on the Apple TV HD?
Compatible content from itunes can either be synced to the AppleTV's drive across your network, or if itunes is running you can stream content from iTunes to the AppleTV if it's not on the AppleTV disk.
The AppleTV cannot connect to external drives, but iTunes itself can handle media on external drives connected to your computer.
Also, Is there a way to play what is "steaming" on a MBP to the TV through Apple TV?
If you mean can AppleTV relay a computer's video output (eg a streaming video in a web browser, or whatever is on screen) then the answer is no.
Thanks in advance guys.

New to Macbook Pro, External hard drive question.

I've just made the swirch to an Apple Macbook Pro from a PC. I've used the PC since the early 90's and all I know is Windows. However I'm finding myself more at home in Lion. My question is probably a simple one so I'll get to it. I have a 1TB Seagate Mac/PC external usb powered hard drive that I've used on my PC for all my iTunes media, 95% of which was purchased from Apple (who the **** knows if that matters but information could be crucial and besides I saw someone else say that in a post, only he found his music, whatever that means, anyway....). Now I have added all files to the library of my iTunes on the Mac while still running them from the external hard drive and everything transferd smothly (see not a complete idiot) but for some reason I can not write to the hard drive. If I try to update an app, delete a fie, rename or otherwis change the file in itunes I get an error claiming I don't have permission to do so. When I look at the drive itself, sure enough it says I may read only. Now the drive was formatted and used on a Windows PC prior to today. What do I need to do on the Mac end to make it read and writable (is that the right word?) so I can enjoy updating my apps or plain getting rid of some old things? Thanks in advance for any help.
New Mac User

Your external harddisk uses the NTFS file system which is common for Windows PCs.
Mac OSX can read from NTFS harddisks but cannot write to them.
For full access you need a third-party helper tool like the free NTFS-3G or Fuse4X or the commercial ones from Paragon or Tuxera NTFS for Mac.
In the long run and when you don't need a "Windows-PC-compatibility" of the external harddisk anymore you should consider reformating/repartioning the external harddisk using the Mac OSX native partition and file system formats. (GUID and MacOS Extended (Journaled)).
But such an action would delete everything that is on that external harddisk so it is not that easy.
Stefan

External Hard Drive Questions

This is more of an opinion question.
I have a MBP with an 80GB hard drive which always seems to be full up. I also have a 250GB hard drive which is nearly full up. The 250GB is not used for backup, i have all my photos and big files on there and none of my files are actually backed up
I was thinking about getting another 500GBish hard drive and using it for more space and also time machine - can it be used for both? Can anyone recommend a good cheap hard drive?
How well does time machine work with laptops? would i have to plug it in every night? does it have a sort of separate trash kept on my computer which is only deleted when i plug in the Mac to the External hard drive. Or is anything i delete without the external hard drive attached deleted forever?
Or, is it worth the hastle and cost to upgrade my MBP internal hard drive?
Thanks very much
Message was edited by: pumpkin person

okay so what would a cheap hard drive from PC World be like - like this Western Digital Elements Desktop 500GB 3.5" - although i imagine that link will probably time out.
http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/store/pcwpage.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@2000027328.1216206856@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjadeejdfdkigc flgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=638717&categoryoid=-32889
I think i want to stick with Time Machine just because it looks so flash and easy to use really, plus i would have to pay for Super Duper
I dont really feel confident switching the hard drive myself, i tried doing the RAM once which is alot easier and i competly messed it up and had to take it to an apple store. How much would an apple store charge if i asked them to do it?
Would it be okay to have time machine running at the same time as also having separate media on the same hard drive? How much space would time machine take up?
Thanks very much for your replies

Itunes & external hard drive questions "original file could not be found"

I recently got my first apple, a Powerbook G4, and I am trying to figure out how to store and access my music files that are on my external hard drive. I have some music stored on my laptop and the majority of it on the hard drive. I can play the files on my computer's hard drive(itunes finds them), but the files on the external hard drive will not play, unless i seek it out manually. The message says "the song could not be played because the original file couldn't be found. Would u like to locate it" My question is how to get the files in my library to play when they are stored on my external hard drive. Any advice would be appreciated.

There's something missing in your explanation. If you're getting the "original file..." message, that would indicate that you may have had all your music files on your laptop drive at one point and them moved some of them to the external drive without using the proper procedure.
If you don't have a lot of playlists, star ratings, and that sort of information that you're trying to preserve, then Mike's suggestion is an easy way out. If you do have a lot of that kind of information, then you may need to see if you can restore your setup to its former condition, when it was all working, and then use proper procedures to move files to the external drive or whatever it was that you were trying to do.

Apple TV External Hard Drive (again)

I realize that there have been a TON of questions about hooking up an external hard drive to an Apple TV. Much of what I've read says that it can't be done without unsupported 3rd party software. I've also read that you need to have iTunes running on a computer in order to "feed" the Apple TV.
The reason that I would like to use an external drive with my Apple TV is because I do not want to have to have a worksation running whenever I want to watch television. I'm wondering if the following might be possible:
Copy all of my iTunes, photos, movies, etc. to a 2Tb external hard drive.
Network the 2Tb drive through my AirPort Extreme.
Connect my iPhone to my home wifi network and tell my iTunes on my phone to grab songs from my networked drive. (Can this be done? Everything hinges on this.)
Then stream my stuff to my Apple TV from my phone.
Anyone know if this can be done?

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums
sdforsythe wrote:
Copy all of my iTunes, photos, movies, etc. to a 2Tb external hard drive.
Network the 2Tb drive through my AirPort Extreme.
Connect my iPhone to my home wifi network and tell my iTunes on my phone to grab songs from my networked drive. (Can this be done? Everything hinges on this.)
Then stream my stuff to my Apple TV from my phone.
Anyone know if this can be done?
Sorry this cannot be done

How to open my apple formatted external hard drive in my pc?

Hi guys. I have [or had...] an Australian Imac 27". I do not have the specifications now because the computer died last night. I was working and than suddenly everything slowed down. I tried to open Itunes and icon became an interrogation mark after I clicked it; in the aplications folder several programs had a red mark (sign) in their icons.
Well, I already did all kind of boots and resets and I think I probably my computer died [internal hd]. I live in Mali (Africa), thousands of miles from the nearest genius bar or apple stores.
My immediate problem is with my partitioned 4TB My Book II external hard drive [do not know how it was formatted]. It had in one HD my time machine and in the other some crucial files.
Now I am using a PC and I do not see the contents of the HD. Sure, the PC connects to it showing that there is a partitioned hard drive. But it does not open.
Do you think is a MAC OS - Windows problem? [fat x ntfs] How can I solve this problem?

MacDrive for your PCs... allows them to Read/Write Mac HFS+...
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

WRT610N router & external hard drive questions

I just purchased a 610N router and I want to connect an external hard drive (Seagate 160GB) to it in order to view photos and other media primarily on my PS3, but also on my laptops. By stumbling through the process, I seem to have the drive mapped to my primary computer but I am not happy with the results.
The external hard drive already has tons of folders on it, and the photos are categorized into their own folders and sub-folders. I can access them from the computer after lots of clicking.
Question #1) The PS3: can it see only one media server at a time? The WRT610N is the media server it sees right now, but none of my files and directories that are on the external hard drive are viewable on the PS3.
Question #2) Do the files need to be in a particular folder located on the drive? The PS3 is looking for the "mp_root" on the router/external hard drive.
Question #3) Do all the media files, photos, movies, music, all have to be on the root drive or in the same directory? I was told that they had to be in one place, not scattered among sub-directories?
Question #3) The network shows a "default" folder, a "config" folder and two others (I'm writing this from memory as I'm not in front of the computer right now). What are those folders? Did the router or network create them?
Question #4) What can I do to improve the experience of using the drive on the network?
Thanks for any advice or guidance you can provide.

It might be a firmware issue. After upgrading the firmware did you reset the device without connecting the drives?
Try the reset and check if problem still persists try degrading the firmware.

Time Machine: setting-up external hard drive question

I purchased the Lacie 2TB External Hard Drive from Apple and in the set-up process it said to free up all 2 TB storage space if I intend to use it only for my MAC (which I do), so that's what I did. However, when I was doing that, the set-up screen kept giving me these warning signs if I did all MAC like the screen told me to do it would erase data on the disk...I did all MAC anyways so not sure what got erased since nothing I thought is supposed to be on there...don't these come clean with 2TB available? I just want to make sure I did this right!

KrystelleLynne wrote:
I have been doing back-ups on with it using time machine. I did not, however, do the check in disk utility. Since there are back-ups on the hard drive, should I still erase?
Not now no. All is ok then.
If Time machine HAS been backing up to it, its fine, it couldnt use it otherwise.
However now that youve got A (single) backup, dont make the huge mistake everyone else does, backup your data on yet another HD and update it and store it somewhere safe
second HD doesnt have to use time machine, just drag and drop your valuable data.
Hard drives are cheap as dirt, buy another one at minimum if you cherish your priceless data.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.
Many countless people think they're safe and doing well having a single external backup of their vital data they worked months, years, and sometimes decades on. Nothing could be further from the truth. Never let yourself be in situation of having a single external copy of your precious data.

Apple Extreme - External Hard Drive - Time Machine????????

Can i connect an external hard drive to a apple extreme and use time machine for automatic back ups? If so, how?

J_Corrigan_93 wrote:
can you two speak english lol.
If you'll be specific instead of talking about "things" and "somthing" (sic) and "doesn't work."
Remember, we can't see over your shoulder or read your mind from here.
I got a usb hard drive thing
You've posted in the Airport forum, so is it connected to An Apple Airport Extreme? If so, directly or via a USB hub? If so, is it powered? Does the drive have it's own power supply?
Or is it connected to an Apple Time Capsule? Or directly to your Mac? Or something else (ie, what)?
How is it formatted?
and i try to turn on time maching it turns it self off. I try to back up it says disk cannot be found or somthing like that.
What does it actually say? If you're not sure, post a screenshot.
I tried selecting the disk but that doesnt work either.
What do you mean by "doesnt work"? What happens, or doesn't happen. Any messages? If so, what, exactly?
Or, perhaps, you might want to see one of these for detailed instructions:
How do I set up Time Machine to an internal or directly-connected external HD?
How do I set up Time Machine to back up to my Time Capsule?
How do I set up Time Machine to back up to an Air Disk on my Time Capsule?
How do I set up Time Machine to back up to an AirDisk on my Airport Extreme?

External Hard Drive Question...

I am looking to purchase an external hard drive to use with my Macbook and my PS3 in order to store my music and movies and share my media between the two. I am also purchasing a larger internal hard drive for my PS3 and it is the exact same 160GB SATA 5400rpm HDD that is in my Macbook so I am assuming since the internal hard drives for the two are compatible that an external hard drive that is compatible with my Macbook will also work with my PS3.
My question is what type of external hard drive will work with my Macbook? I was looking at a Hitachi 500GB SATA 7200rpm external hard drive but when reading a customer review it read something about not being compatible with a particular PC because it is 3.0GBs and the PC would only recognize an externall hard drive that is 1.5GBs.
I am unsure what the GBs feature is or what it means and which is compatible with the Macbook. Does anyone have any insight on this or even better does anyone have an external hard drive that is around 500GB that they know works with the Macbook?
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
1.83GHz Macbook C2D 1GB RAM 160GB HD Mac OS X (10.4.8) 5.5G 80GB White iPod/60 GB Playstation 3 w/ 32" LCD HDTV 720p-1080i

I am not sure I understand what you are asking. If you want to use a HD as an external drive, you have to buy an enclosure as the enclosure has the chipsets to convert the HD connections to USB or FireWire.
You need it.
I would suggest that you get an enclosure that uses both USB and FW as your PS3 has USB and your MB has both USB and FW. FW is faster so that would be nice to use on your MB.

Backup methods and external hard drive questions

I usually copy files and photos to DVDs but wonder if that's enough and the most efficient method to back up. So I purchased a Seagate 1TB external hard drive. Here are my questions:
- What is the best way to copy all my data to this hard drive?
- Is it necessary to copy everything?
- Is it possible to partition the external hard drive?
- Is it possible to use this hard drive to copy data from more than one computer, for instance, my powerbook and a PC laptop? If so, how?
Any information on this would be so appreciated!

Here are some suggestions for backup:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
Silver Keeper
SuperDuper!
Synchronize Pro! X
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
You can partition the drive if you need to, but that will depend upon why you would need to partition the drive.
Personally, I would clone your startup volume to the external drive. You can do this with any of the referenced software as well as by using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can then incrementally update the clone using a backup utility.
It would be possible to backup more than one computer in which case you would need to partition the drive. Backing up a Windows machine, however, would require partitioning the drive using MBR and formatting it FAT32 (MSDOS).
For clarification do you really have a PowerBook (PPC machine) or a MacBook (Intel?)

Old 144G Apple TV - External Hard Drive

My old Apple TV has a 144G hard drive and I want to know if I can use the USB connection in the back to connect to my iMac for an external hard drive? Would hate to waste the memory simply because I upgraded to the new Apple TV.

unfortunately, the ATV is not an external hard drive device. If your in need, take it apart and strip out the hard drive and put it some other use -- trashing the ATV. But bigger hard drives are cheap!

Apple TV + External Hard Drive + Network

I have bought an external hard drive and will consolidate my iTunes library onto it (as it's been cramping my ATV and MacBook's collective capacity). Simple question - if I run my iTunes library exclusively from my external hard drive and plug it into my AEBS, will I have to have my computer on (as well as iTunes) to watch content on my ATV, or can ATV find my library on my external HD with my computer off provided my HD is connected to the network?
Thanks all.

you still need the itunes library running.
appletv will not simply see the HDD, it still needs to link via the itunes library on the pc/mac.

New Mac user-External Hard Drive question...

Just purchased my 1st Mac/the new Mac mini. Arrived today & am very impressed.
Set-up, right out of the box, was incredibly SIMPLE and I cant believe what a little dynamo this thing is! I've thought about 'switching' to a Mac from PC for quite a while, but was always a little nervous, so I've patiently watched & waited from the sidelines- until now - and it was well worth the wait.
My 'question' is, can anyone recommend a good external hard drive I can use interchangeably between my PC & my new Mini? Still using the PC until I get completely acclimated with Mac platform/etc - I'd like something with at least
1TB storage. Thanks!

derosky wrote:
I'm a new Mac user. My question is: Do I need a external hard drive to create a back up? Can I create abackup on a DVD or Hard Drive in MB. Please explain this to me. When I want to configure Time Machine it displays me no Drives to create a back up.
Time Machine requires an external hard drive
You can back up by other means to CDs or DVDs
If you are a .MAC customer you get a decent backup program that backs up to your iDisk and/or to CD-DVD
You would NOT want to back up to your internal drive since that would accomplish nothing - a dead or messed up HD is no good for either the beginning part of the other part where the backup is
LN

Apple TV/External Hard drive Question

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