Have songs on my hard drive already, but still has iCloud icon next to it in iTunes...

Question

So I'm confused as to how iTunes Match should work apparently.  I have it turned on and it works fine, but all of the songs in my iTunes library (connected to airport extreme) says they are in the iCloud instead of local.  So then if I press the download button for that song, it downloads it and duplicates the song on the hard drive!  How weird!  Why wouldn't it just point to the file on my hard drive since it's already there?
Or once we turn on Match, should we go and delete our entire local library?  I'm just confused. 
I also thought I could play them and it would show as downloaded by pointing to the hard drive version, but no dice.  Apparently it only streams from a Mac. 
The whole reason this is an issue (besides *** backwards functionality) is I am trying to export a playlist and it only shows downloaded songs in the text file, not songs in iCloud, even though all the songs are on my hard drive!
Anyway, and ideas would be great.
Thanks,

Answer 1

sadcaper wrote:
With iCloud, is there a need to backup music anymore?  If you lose your hard drive, can't you just download it again from iCloud?  That was my impression at least.
Read this: FAQ: Why iTunes Match Can Not Be Used as a Backup. If you care about your data you'll still keep local backups of all your personal data. Cloud storage is nice and all that but Apple doesn't market iTunes Match as a backup solution and because the matching is not 100% accurate nor does the service store Apple Lossless files, it is not a viable backup solution. For cloud backups you want a company like Backblaze or Mozy or one of the others available who are backup solutions.
sadcaper wrote:
Currently both MBPr and iMac have the iTunes Media folder pointed to the Drobo.  However, I did notice that some music files were downloaded locally on the MBPr, which I think are from the auto download feature.  Not sure though.
Yeah, the home sharing thing may work.  I wanted for both machines to be able to see purchases from either machine, or iPhones.  That's why I wanted them to share a library.  So if I bought a song on my laptop, I could run upstairs and see if on the iMac as well.  Maybe library sharing is the best way to do that however.
Keep in mind that any purchases made on the MBPr will be downloaded, and with automatic downloads turned on purchases from other devices will also be downloaded. Right off the top of my head I don't know if this will result in duplicate downloads, but as long as the MBPr is on the local network and iTunes has the library pointing at the Drobo it will all go into the same spot. BUT... if you make a purchase on the MBPr while away from the local network that purchase will be downloaded to the local internal HDD.
So a variation on the theme I talked about above is to, perhaps, not make any purchases on the MBPr and turn off auto-downloads for purchases and keep iTunes Match and Home Sharing enabled. This will enable you to access the music library while home and away and not keep any media on the internal HDD.