ITunes Library on External Hard Drive via Time Capsule and plugged in directly to laptop when away from home

To save space on my macbook pro I would like to export my iTunes library onto an external usb hard drive. So that I don't have to have the hard drive plugged in to my laptop all the time when I am at home I would like to plug it into a Time Capsule and access it over my wireless network. This is the simple part that I am confident about setting up.
The tricky part is as follows. When I take my laptop out of the house when I am traveling I would like to still be able to access my iTunes library by plugging the external usb hard drive directly into my laptop as I will not be able to access my home network anymore.
I know this will potentially break all of the tracks in my iTunes library as the file paths will change as it will be plugged directly into my laptop rathern than via the Time Capsule. Does anybody know of a way to quickly fix all of the broken tracks in the library or a way I could achieve the above?
I hope someone can help me

I have nothing wireless in the house and no experience with Time Capsules. However, as long as the drive appears on the desktop in both scenarios there should be no problem. If there is, hold down the option key while starting iTunes and guide it to the library.itl file on the external drive.
Do not confuse moving your library with moving your media, as many people do. Your library is your whole iTunes folder. You move it by copying the whole folder to the other drive and starting iTunes with the option key as above. If you want to move only media you do so through preferences settings in iTunes,making sure you organize (consolidate) your media so it actually copies it to the other drive. There are advantages and disadvantages to either situation, but generally unless you are going to have media on one several drives, or you plan on sharing media but not library listings with other users, you are best off moving teh whole library. Moving the whole library also has less potential for resulting in broken links since your library is all in one package and not split across drives.

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Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

As john noted, eventually that external is probably not going to be big enough, but it certainly is for now. The HD just needs enough capacity to cover the amount of data on your internal HD, not the internal HD's total capacity.
Format/partition the external as follows and you should be set to go:
1. Connect the external HD to the MBP.
2. Open Disk Utility on the MBP.
3. Select the external HD in the left pane.
4. Click on the Erase tab.
5. Choose the Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
NOTE: if you want to zero the HD (which I always think is a good idea, but does take time), click on Security Options, click the button for Zero Out Data, click OK. The larger the HD, the longer this will take, in some cases several hours.
6. Click on Erase and wait for the entire process to finish.
7. Click the Partition tab.
8. Click on Volume Scheme: and choose the number of partitions (just one in this situation).
9. Click on the Options button (located underneath the Volume Scheme pane) and select GUID.
10. Click Apply.
11. Quit Disk Utility.
Backup your internal to the external. What application are you using to backup with? I highly recommend both SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner.

Can I mount external hard drive to Time Capsule and use it as external storage?

I have a 500GB external hard drive that I'd like to use on the Time Capsule as a hard drive to store mp3 and mp4 files. Can I attach it to the Time Capsule and use it like this? Or does it just give an additional 500GB worth of back ups from my iMac?

Can I attach it to the Time Capsule and use it like this?
Yes, if the drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)...preferable....or FAT32. Access to the files will somewhat slower than if you had the drive attached directly to your computer.
Have you given some thought as to how you will keep this drive backed up?
Time Machine will not be able to back up the drive that is attached to the Time Capsule's USB port.
But, it would be able to back up the drive if you connected it directly to your Mac and the drive was formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Can I use one 2tb external hard drive for time capsule and file storage?

I would like to use time capsule, but also keep the hard drive on my desktop for file storage. Can I do this?

Apple advises against doing that.
Any data stored on the disk that Time Machine is backing up to can not be backed up.
Plus the data outside of the Time Machine backup database cause problems when Time Machine starts cleaned up old backups to recover space for new backups.
For these reason it is advised that the Time Capsule disk be used for one or the other but not both.
Allan

I transferred data from my external hard drive to my restored Mac Book Pro via migration assistant and now my external hard drive in time capsule has red minus signs. How do I get rid of that without getting rid of any of my data?

I used Migration Assistant to transfer my data from my external hard drive via Time Capsule to my restored Mac Book Pro. When I now go into Time Capsule I there are red minus signs in the corner of all the folders that are contained in my back up. How do I get rid of this and access my previous back-ups?

Select the drive and Finder > Get info and at the bottom "ignore permissions on this volume"
You can copy the files, but the ownership on the files still belongs to the other user account, once your done copying, then perform a #6 Reset Users Permissions and that will set all the ownership to that account.
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Another method is to copy the entire folder, then change it's permissions.

HT201250 How do you add an external Hard drive to time machine and share on network?

How do you add an external Hard drive to time capsule and share it on local network?
Lee

Ensure it's formatted as Mac OS Extended, FAT16, or FAT32, connect it to a self-powered hub, and plug it into the Time Capsule's USB port. If the drive is Ethernet and not USB, ignore everything else and just plug it in.
(71787)

How to export photo to external hard drive? (time capsule 3t)?

cant find photo in hard drive. where does iphoto store photo? i looked for the foler everwhere....

how to export photo to external hard drive? (time capsule 3t)?
Simple - launch iPhoto, select the phtoos and export (file menu ==> export) to the destination of yoru choice - see the user tip onexporting for details on the export optiopns - https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/iphoto?view=documents
However is the Time Capsule being used for Time Machine backups? If it is do not use it as an external drive too - it needs to be dedicated to one use only
cant find photo in hard drive. where does iphoto store photo? i looked for the foler everwhere....
And this is a totally different question - by default in your iPhoto library - and to access then see the user tip on accessing yoru iPhoto files - https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/iphoto?view=documents
You never access them directly - always using the supported access methods
LN

How do you back up an external hard drive with time capsule?

how do you back up an external hard drive with time capsule?

Will time capsule back up the machine and the hard drive that is plugged into the machine?
Yes, if the hard drive with the video files is formatted correctly for Mac
On the Mac with the hard drive connected....click on the Time Machine "clock" icon at the top of the screen
Click Time Machine Preferences
Click Options
Here you will see a list of items that have been excluded from backups
Click the name of the hard drive to highlight it
Click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the hard drive from the list of excluded items
The hard drive will now be backed up with your Mac on the next pass that Time Machine makes

Can I connect an external hard drive to Time Capsule for off site back up?

I like having a copy of everything at another site in case of a house fire. Can I connect an external hard drive to Time Capsule to make a duplicate of what is on Time Capsule? I would store that hard drive at work and bring it home monthly or something to back up Time Capsule. Thanks!

Can I connect an external hard drive to Time Capsule to make a duplicate of what is on Time Capsule?
That is exactly what the Archive function on the Time Capsule is for. Connect a USB drive and click Archive, and a mirror image of your Time Capsule will be copied over to the USB drive. It's a slow process that will take 4-8 hours depending on how much data is on the Time Capsule, so best to start things late at night and let them run overnight.
Another option would be to use a commercial application like Carbon Copy Cloner to keep your backup. The advantage to this approach is that once the first "master" backup is done, the application will only back up the changes on the Time Capsule that have occurred since the last backup. So, subsequent backups will be much faster, probably only taking about 10-15 minutes.

ITunes Library to External Hard Drive...and iTunes Match???

So, my iTunes library is getting too large for my computer's storage capacity. I'm thinking of moving some of my library to an external, USB hard drive. However, I've never done iTunes through an external hard drive before and I have some questions.
Can I copy new discs (import) straight onto the external hard drive? Or do they need to go onto my computer first then get transferred to the hard drive?
Can I still use iTunes Match and pull songs from the library on my hard drive and from the main computer?
To partition a library between a computer and an external hard drive, do I need to activate sharing or anything special? Or will the computer/main iTunes library just consider the external drive to be a different location for some of the tracks?
How would I backup the external hard drive? Would Time Machine (running off a separate hard drive) back up another external hard drive if they were both plugged in?
Can you burn the entire library to data discs anymore? Or do you need to make a playlist of your entire library? If the latter, is there a way to turn off the message about iTunes in the Cloud playlists only accepting songs matched or uploaded? I have some songs that erroneously did not get matched or uploaded. If I try to put them in a playlist and burn it to a data disc for backup, iTunes won't do it.
Please help!

I recommend you keep everything inside the iTunes folder.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from internal to external.
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external.
This is all you need to do. Everything will work normally.
You can delete now /Music/iTunes/ folder on the internal.

ITunes library on external hard drive that nots always connected.....

Can anyone help please?
I have a laptop running Win XP and i have the latest version of itunes. I want to keep all my music on an external hard drive because i can't fit it on the laptop. This in itself isnt a problem - i have all the files on the external HDD and have set iTunes up and everything is fine HOWEVER because i have a laptop, i'm not going to lug my external drive with me everywhere. So i am getting problems where when i do plug the external drive in and run iTunes - it comes up with question marks against EVERYTHING and i have to effectively add the library file again. Surely there is some other way round this?! can i not keep all my music on the external drive then just connect when i need to? why is itunes not happy with this? i dont use itunes unless i am connected to the external drive.
Many thanks for any help!

As long as you don't launch iTunes until after the external hard drive is mounted, you shouldn't have a problem. I've been using such a set up for years.

How do I backup my external hard drive to time capsule?

How do I back up my external hard drive to time my time capsule?

Two requirements:
1) The drive must be connected directly to your Mac via USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt.
2) The drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
After both requirements have been confirmed......
Click the Time Machine "clock" icon at the top of the Mac's screen
Click Time Machine Preferences
Click Options
Here you will see a list of items that are currently Excluded from backups, so your hard drive will appear here.
Click on the name of the hard drive to highlight it
Click on the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from the list of items that are Excluded from backups
The drive will be backed up on the next pass that Time Machine makes. Time Machine will continue to back up any changes that are made on the hard drive on subsequent backups.

Can I connect an external hard drive to Time Capsule?

Is it possible to "extend" Time Capsule storage with an external hard drive? If I connect a hard drive to Time Capsule using its USB slot, would I be able to access it wirelessly from my Mac the same as I access the built-in Time Capsule drive? If so, will it be slower than the native drive?

1. No.
2. Yes. The external drive will be treated as a separate volume instead of adding to the capacity of the internal drive.
(119108)

Move data from external hard drive to time capsule

I want to move data from my external USB hard drive to time capsule.
If I drag and drop, it seems go through my computer, and it's 500 gig of data, that impossible, is there a way to direct copy?
Thanks in advance

maxxxx wrote:
If I drag and drop, it seems go through my computer
Yup.
is there a way to direct copy?
Nope.

Re-locate itunes library from NTFS external hard drive to Time capsule

I have 90% of my itunes files on an external hard drive which I used as the location of my itunes library when I was using a pc.
I now use a macbook 80GB.
I cannot use my external hard drive with my macbook as it's filing system is NTFS, and so incompatible with macs.
I wish to transfer all my music from the external hard drive to my Time Capsule, and use the TC as my new external hard drive and the location of my itunes library, ( as well as using the TC as my main back up location with Time Machine.)
Firstly....the very basics.....
How do I use TC as a external hard drive generally?
To be the location of my large folders, files ( and itunes collection)that take too much space on my macbook.
Next....
Am I right in thinking that I need to do the following...
Get Airtport utility on my pc, connect to TC and transfer from external HD to TC.
I would greatly appreciate all help and suggestions, as I am unsure as to all of these tasks.
Many Many Thanks
Hoo

You could plug the WD drive straight into the TC but it will be much faster to do it with the WD drive plugged into the computer.. and just mount the TC hard disk in Finder.
To move itunes library you must follow the Apple instructions.. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
You may need to reconnect itunes to the library before you try to move it.. !!

ITunes Library on External Hard Drive via Time Capsule and plugged in directly to laptop when away from home

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