Best place to keep iTunes database...internal vs. external drive?

My new iMac has a much smaller internal hard drive than my old iMac, so I plan to move my actual iTunes content (songs, videos) to an external hard drive. Is it better to have the iTunes Library Database (iTunes Library.itl) on my computer's internal drive, or with the iTunes content on the external hard drive?

Usually it is best to relocate the whole library to the external unless you are connected to the external by a slow connection which also has a high amount of data traffic (rarely the case for most people). iTunes frequently reads and re-writes the database file which could slow things down if it has to wait for other things.
Moving a library: Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its sub-folders and files) intact to the other drive. Hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) and open iTunes. At the prompt to create or choose a library choose the copied iTunes folder.

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Keeping itunes files on 2 external drives?

i keep my itunes files on an external hard drive right now, i just got a 500gb external drive to back up all my files. how can i keep my current drive as a primary drive for itunes to load up to and also have the files copied into the new drive as a backup all the time? i want all files current and if i change info on a song or album it will upgrade on both drives. how can i backup all my itunes files onto the new hard drive and still have it be recognized by itunes.

Here is what I do if it will assist you.
The iTunes folder is in the My Documents-Music folder.
I copied the whole iTunes folder to an external hard drive as a backup. When I download a new song, movie, upload a new movie from a DVD movie, etc. I copy this song, movie, etc. to the external hard drive and then copy the iTunes Music Database file and iTunes Music Library file over.
So, when I make a change I copy the file over and move the two; iTunes database and library file over.
It works. I have restored to 6 installs already and everything is there in place. I dont have to do anything.
(Oh, dont forget to deauthorize the computer when formatting the computer)
It looks like this is what you are doing.
I have 375GB of iTunes data and am converting all my 300 DVDs to MP4 and uploading into iTunes. Love watching movies on my iPhone. No one bothers me . You cant make DVDs with this much data so an external 500GB+ hard drive is needed. The first move is long, but moving additional files over is pretty quick.
Also as a 3rd backup my iTunes folder is also on my work computer. It takes longer to move changes over...Primary iTunes folder to external drive. Take external drive to work someday and move the files there. Done.
Message was edited by: Wizarc
Message was edited by: Wizarc

I have my iTunes Library on and external hard drive. I have a new computer and want to use iTunes and KEEP my files on the external drive.

My iTunes library is on an external hard drive, and I was able to access / add to the library from my windows laptop.
I now have a new laptop, and want to be able to KEEP the library on the external drive while being able to use iTunes from the new laptop.
I have selected "choose library" in iTunes, and have chosen the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive.
My media populates in iTunes on the new laptop version of iTunes, but when I click on a song iTunes says that it cannot locate the song.
Your help is kindly appreciated!

Thanks. Were the settings shown in your last screenshot in force when you added the song that's shown on being on the C: drive? It is also possible that at some point you ran iTunes with the external drive disconnected, in which case it will have defaulted to the library on the C: drive, or that you've run iTunes without explicitly selecting the library on the E: drive. To make sure the latter is the case, hold down SHIFT while starting iTunes, then when you get this prompt:
click on Choose Library..., navigate to the location of your current iTunes Library.itl file, and click Open.
Part of your issue may that its not obvious where that current database file is located. The folder layout on your E: drive isn't the one that's most easily managed - so its possible that the database file could be in:
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes
E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes 1
I suggest that a lot of your issues can be addressed by reshaping your library into the reliable "portable" layout as described in tt2's Make a split library portable user tip. Comparing your screenshot with the equivalent on my system (where I have a "well-formed" library on an external drive):
where:
there is just one iTunes folder with everything used by iTunes inside it
all media is held within subfolders of the iTunes Media folder
The way you have yours set up, where the iTunes Media Folder location is set to E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes rather than E:\xxxx\Files\iTunes\iTunes Media is probably why some of your media is not being located correctly - the extent to which iTunes can correctly resolve locations is, to an extent, reliant on the folders for the different media kinds (Music, Audiobooks, etc.) being inside the iTunes Media media folder. One common misunderstanding (not helped at all by Apple's documentation!) is that the iTunes Media Folder location setting in Edit > Preferences > Advanced does not tell iTunes where to find anything; rather it determines where iTunes will put new additions to your Library, in conjunction with the Copy files to iTunes Media folder ... flag:
I would definitely take the time to work through the steps to bring your library into the "portable" shape - there may be few remaining issues with broken links when that's complete but this will be much easier to fix if your library is in a more standard structure.

Save Itunes music on internal or external drive?

My new G5 has plenty of free space in it's internal drive, and it seems natural to save the Itunes songs there since it's selected as the default drive. Yet, I've always been told to save all my media on an external drive, so that the computer processing power isn't slowed down. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether I should keep my Itunes library on my external drive or my internal drive?
Thanks, and Happy New Year.

I have had my music on the boot drive, a second internal drive and an external hard drive, and have found that with a G5, having the music on the boot drive results in the least amount of lag time from track selection to play, since that drive is almost always active.
However, since I have a very large music and video library, keeping it on the internal drive was not a good idea, so I moved it to an external drive. Although this was a 10,000 rpm firewire EIDE drive, there was still considerable lag time from selection to play. I ended up with a second internal SATA drive that has some lag time, but much less than the dedicated external.
I have never heard that having music on an internal drive slows down the processing power. I've never experienced any degradation of performance when iTunes was merely playing music, but if I was playing and managing music (creating playlists, importing tracks or adding art) at the same time, there was some slowdown between tracks until I added more memory (from 1 gb to 3 gb).
Good luck,
Lita

How is the best way to have Itunes notice your app or drive traffic to the app store?

How is the best way to have Itunes notice your app or drive traffic to the app store? What are the best ways based on experiance that works to drive traffic to your app as a paid game for .99?

Write an app people want to buy and rate highly.

Can i keep itunes content on an external hard drive

how to keep itunes content on an external hard drive

Thanks Niel, I tried it and got this. What am I missing

Cannot install Yosemite as it keeps telling me both my internal and external drives are time machine backups

Cannot install Yosemite. Keeps telling me that both my internal and external
drives are backing up with TIme Machine. Any suggestions?

Is it actively backing up, or are you encountering a dialog stating that Yosemite cannot be installed because the disk is being used for Time Machine backups?
Read OS X: Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups
If for some reason you have a folder called Backups.backupdb at the root level of the hard disk on which you want to install Yosemite, move it to the Trash.

How to transfer iTunes library to an external drive (thats easy!) but keeping the playlists musics on the computer?

How to transfer iTunes library to an external drive (thats easy!) but keeping the playlists musics on the computer?
Many thanks!

Select a single song with a broken link, press CTRL+I to Get Info, cancel when asked to locate the track and take a look at the Summary tab. Post back where iTunes is looking for the file. It begins file://localhost
Where is it really?
Please post back both paths so that I can make suggestions. Full paths please, exact spellings, you can replace your user name with <User> if needed.
tt2

Is it possible to keep iTunes Library on an external disk ?

Is it possible to keep iTunes Library on an external disk ?

Moving a library: Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its sub-folders and files) intact to the other drive. Hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) and open iTunes. At the prompt to create or choose a library choose the copied iTunes folder.

Should I have my iTunes library on an external drive?

Just curious if I'm better off running all my iTunes music on an external drive as opposed to on my internal C drive? Same thing with iMovie project files? I thought it would be easier for the computer to access if it's on the internal drive, but someone told me I should put everything on an external. I'm confused. My external drive is USB 2.0 but whenever I try to access it after it's been dormant for a while I get the spinning beach ball until it's up to speed so I didn't know if that drive would slow things down. So I'm assuming that would be the case with iTunes music. But I know it's silly to assume. Anyway, all thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

I don't think it really makes a difference speed wise if you run your itunes off an external hard drive. Just be careful that you update your directory for itunes to point to the external. If you download any updates to itunes it will automatically reset your folder to point back to your c-drive. The best thing to do is to uncheck to selection to automatically update itunes software so you are not caught off guard with the updates resetting your itunes folder directory.

Moving iTunes library to an external drive.

My startup disk is full so I would like to move my iTunes library to an external drive to fee up space. What is the best way to do this?

Our iTunes guru Terence Devlin advises the following:
1. Quit iTunes
2. Drag the iTunes folder from your internal hd - located in ~/Music folder - to your external hd. DO NOT delete the original one from your internal hd... yet!
3. When the transfer is complete, press and hold the Option(alt) key and fire up iTunes.
4. A "Choose iTunes Library" window will come up. Click on the "Choose Library" button.
5. Navigate to where the iTunes folder is located in the external hd.
6. Within the iTunes folder, select the iTunes Library file and click Choose...
That's it. iTunes will now display all your playlists, songs, movies, podcasts etc. At this point, should you wish, you can delete the iTunes folder from the internal hd to free up space.
More info:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Or if you prefer a more complicated explanation:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

Moving Itunes library to an external drive...how to?

I'd like to make room on my hard drive -- it's only 15GB. My Itunes and iphoto take up about 5gb by themselves. I'd like to move them to an external drive. I ain't the smartest cookie....is this easy to do?....moving the libraries that is?

I moved iTunes to an external hard drive a while ago. The move (using the above links) worked fine but the need to ensure the external drive was available whenever iTunes was launched was a major nuisance. I ended up keeping iTunes on the main hard drive and moving less critical stuff to the external drive. The same goes for iPhoto.
BTW, I recently upgraded my internal hard drive from 80Gb to 120Gb. Apple's Migration Assistant was brillant for doing this. I temporarily put the old hard disk in my external drive case and Tiger found the system and migrated apps and data with very few problems. I would recommend looking at this option for coping with ever-increasing iTunes storage demands rather than going to an external hard drive.

I wish to move my itunes media to an external drive.

i wish to move my itunes media to an external drive.
currently i am managing my own folder structure, but have decided to bite the bullet and let itunes organize my media.
i moved the media library location in advanced options to the external drive i would like iTunes to us, checked 'keep iTunes media folder organised' and copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library'.
approx a third of my music transferred. the remaining music is now greyed out. when i click on information on the greyed out tracks, the location is given as iCloud. how do i download these songs?

benefit: To move the library in the future you drag the whole iTunes folder to the new drive, hold down the option key while starting iTunes, point to new location, iTunes starts as if nothing happened. You can also use the library with a different computer. It's easy to back up when it's all together.
You cannot simply move a media-only folder to a new drive by dragging unless you maintain the folder structure exactly, and the new drive has the same name as the old one. Yes, there's fixes but it's not as fast.
The main disadvantage to having the whole library on an external is if for some reason you keep some media on the external and some on the internal. You can use iTunes with a bunch of broken links for media on an unattached external if you only want to play the files on the internal. Then, of course, you need the library file (library.itl) on the internal drive.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

HT1373 How do I backup my itunes library to an external drive

My iTunes library is unstable. I have two questions:
1) How do I backup my iTunes library to an external drive?
2) Why am I constatntly prompted to add my computer to iCloud when I have done so multiple times?
When opening iTunes, I receive he error message: "Please Sign In Again, iTunes Match has encountered an error. Please choose Sign Out and he Sign In from the iTunes Store menu and try again."
I tried downloading and installing/repairing the latest iTunes. That did not correct the problem.
Also, I have sync'd to iCloud. Every time I select iMatch from iTunes, I am prompted to Add This Computer to iCloud. I have already done this multiple times.

Hello cijackson,
You posted your question in the iTunes for Mac Forum. You may get better results on the iTunes for Windows forum. Best of luck > https://discussions.apple.com/community/itunes/itunes_for_windows?view=overview

How do I Move Events from an Internal to External drive?

Hello,
I am trying to move events on my internal drive to my new external drive. Everything is set up and I see the external drive, but after reading other posts and replies it seems I can't just move the files from the internal to external drive by dragging and dropping using finder.
Can anyone give some guidance on how I do this so i don't have to reload all my videos on the external drive.
Also, when they are moved over, will i see the external drive when I open iMovie, or do I ahve to do something to see it in my Events Library.
Any help be be appreciated.

Can anyone give some guidance on how I do this so i don't have to reload all my videos on the external drive.
Best approach is to import files directly to the external drive during the initial import process by selecting the appropriate drive in the import window. However, for Events already stores, here is A QUICKIE VIDEO TUTORIAL.
Also, when they are moved over, will i see the external drive when I open iMovie, or do I ahve to do something to see it in my Events Library.
You must activate the "external drive" icon in iMovie '08 to make your external drives visible in the Event Library list. (I.e. Press the icon to the right of the "Event Library" title and to the left of the actual Event Window.) Sorry, answered your e-mail message before seeing the second question here.

Best place to keep iTunes database...internal vs. external drive?

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