Library Split on Several Drives

My "Movies" and "TV Shows" folders are quite big. I've been wanting to put them on a separate external drive to free up space on my system. However, I really don't want two libraries that I have to bounce back and forth between, especially since I used the Shared Libraries feature on other computers (I've assumed that iTunes will only share the currently open Library...)
So in OS X this would be easy. I would simply create symbolic links for "Movies" and "TV Shows" in my iTunes Library, mapping over to the new external drive.
e.g.
ln -s /Users/me/Music/iTunes/Movies/ /Volumes/Storage/Movies/
In Vista, this is not quite so easy. A shortcut doesn't work due to the .lnk extension. So I tried used the mklink command to create a Directory Junction.
e.g.
mklink /J Movies G:\Movies
This works... the link is created, and in my Library I can open all my movies! That is until I add one or make a change. I have iTunes set to manage my Library purely for the simplicity of managing such a large library. It seems that iTunes has a problem with the fact that "Movies" is a Directory Junction instead of an actual Folder - but only when writing an update. If I add the file, it gets copied to the right drive so the Junction works, but once I rename the file, I have to run the mklink command again to recreate the Junction.
Has anyone had any success with such a Library setup?

Hi!
Maintaining a volume with a backup operating system is a good idea and will come in handy should your startup drive go awry. However, a backup OS should be one that is installed or cloned from the same computer, versus one which was originally installed on another model. Systems from other models may have different drivers installed and don't always run well on a different Mac.
To eliminate these systems, use the Erase option in Disk Utility to reformat the volumes and free up the space. You might consider using the option to overwrite zeros to the volume when you do this. This is accessed by clicking on the Security Options button in the Erase window. This option will effectively remove the data on the drive, rather than simply erasing the directory for the data. It will also map out any bad sectors which may be present, preventing their future use and insuring against possible data corruption caused by bad sectors.
Be sure to examine the files on the volumes before you erase them, in case there's something you may want or need to save.
Gary
1GHz DP G4 Quicksilver 2002, 400MHz B&W rev.2 G3, Mac SE30 Mac OS X (10.4.5) 5G iPod, Epson 2200 & R300 & LW Select 360 Printers, Epson 3200 Scanner

Similar Messages

One library split between multiple drives?

I'd like to have about 1/3 my library on my laptop, and leave the rest on my external drive, so that I have some music available when I'm travelling, but don't fill up my (small) laptop drive.
I know I can just move some of the files in Windows Explorer, and leave "Consolidate Library" unchecked.
However, I'd like to preserve the play counts. So, is there anyway to do this from within iTunes?

Run the itunes consolidate command so it will put all the files in one folder.
Does your existing PC have enough space on either the C: or D: drive to do this?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1364

Can I split my iTunes library between 2 hard drives?

Can iTunes library be split between to hard drives?
Hi,
My laptop has 2 x 250GB internal hard drives. I wish there was 1 x 500 GB one.
1 of them is nearly full with music only 2GB remaining and the other one has over 100GB remaining.
I'm wondering is it possible to split the location of the library between the 2 drives without too much trouble or is it messy or even possible?!
In other words when I open iTunes the music that is on the nearly full hard drive will remain there and any music I import going forward will be re-directed to the other hard drive but still appear in iTunes along with the music from the other drive.
Thanks...

I have the same question.
I would like to be able to do the same thing with all my media. I'm a DJ and certain aspects of Mac Os X Lion or iCloud, and iTunes Match, don't favor folks with tons of media, storage wise. I'm not happy that there's a limit on how much space iCloud will give you. Yet, I feel forced to upgrade to Lion within the next 4 days. I've been hesitant to rip my collection or even upload all those digital copies because where will I put all those files. I agree with needing like 4-8T just to store, but how? I don't have Thunderbolt, only Firewire on late '08 iMac 20" and USB on 08 MacBook 13" Aluminum. Bleh!
If you can use Time Capsule to back up your entire network with more than one computer, it would seem likely that you should be able to piggy back 2 xTime Capsules. I believe they come with 2-3Ts now and you can get them refurbished? I'm gonna look at Time Capsule Support to find out for myself, I'll let you know what I find, also. One thing I did noticed was that I had uploaded a bunch of Digital Copies from movies I had bought from Blu-Ray Combo Packs like 2 years ago and deleted them from MacBook for more space, only to recently find that they had been saved as purchased items from the iTunes Store. So now I can grab them from iTunes and watch them anytime off my Apple TV.
Good Luck,
Jenn

I want to combine several libraries on several drives into one library, Can this be done?*

I have several itunes libraries and playlists on several drives and directories. Is there an easy way to combine all these files into one library with one play list? Currently it takes up alot of space and I do not have all the media available readily useable.

Interesting. If it claims to do it, then it should; I didn't think it did. Importantly, Acrobat doesn't know how to read INDD files, except that it knows how to run InDesign to make a conversion. If there is any trouble running InDesign on that machine, it will affect it.
Still, I'd recommend exporting. With InDesign documents the export settings used are critical, and you'd want to control them rather than have some default.

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.

Can the aTV read files from an iTunes library on my nas drive without my computer being on

I have my itunes library on a My Book Live nas drive that contains all of my digital movies and TV shows. I want to be able to watch my movies from the library without a computer running. I understand that Apple has chosen to chain you to the computer and your itunes account through Home Sharing but I can not see why they couldn't allow you to access a nas drive without a computer running because your aTV is tied to your itunes account also so why do they force you to run a computer 24/7 365 in order to access the files you have bought and paid for.
I have a love/hate for Apple because I love the quality of the products they make but I hate how they make all of the digital files you purchase only accessible through a computer running Home Sharing even though the files are not stored on the computer.
I have tried several things to get this to work without a computer but no luck. The only way I have found to be able to do this is to Jailbreak your aTV and install 3rd party software (which I don't want to do) that will allow you to by pass the computer and Home Sharing (which is dumber than ****) because that is all I want to do is eliminate the need of a computer running wasting electricity (I thought Apple was supposed to be an enviro friendly company, guess not). I am not trying to steal or give someone else my purchased movies and using the aTV and an internet connection they could still be able to tie your media to your itunes account so I just don't get there thinking, or lack of thinking I should say.
Is their a way to do this without Jailbreaking or modifying your aTV?
If not is Apple ever going to wake up and allow there customers to actually USE the media they purchase from them without Home Sharing and a computer running?

_Skull wrote:
Can the aTV read files from an iTunes library on my nas drive without my computer being on
no it can't. you need itunes open and running

I have transfered my library my library to a NAS drive. How do I stop Itunes from creating the default folder on the local drive?

I've transferred my Itunes Media Library to a NAS drive, and pointed Itunes (using the advanced preferences tab) to the relevant folder on the NAS drive. I have done this to free up disk space on a computer I primarily use for work but which I use both at home and at work. The NAS drive is at home. (To clarify, I am not expecting Itunes to function at work, only at home when access to the NAS drive is available).
Under certain circumstances Itunes will start-up at work and when it does it will create the folder structure for the Itunes Media Library in the default location (on the local drive) instead of looking for the location I have specified (the NAS drive) which it should not be able to find when I am at work and telling me that it can't find it (which would be fine).
How do I stop Itunes from recreating the default folder structure and defaulting the file path to the standard media library location on my local drive? Every time this happens I have to re-point Itunes to the NAS drive location, which often requires me to reconsolicate libraries which is tedious and time consuming. It seems that in the process of one of these consolidations I have lost some of the media files. They are still in the library (ie. visible in the Itunes window) but Itunes can't find the media associated with that file - identifying them with an excamation mark "!".
Any help with this would be appreciated, as I have read several forums and threads, and despite trying several different approaches I have been unable to address the problem, which appears to be exacerbated by the laptop being remote from the NAS drive.

angelofromnsw wrote:
Can I put the ".itl" and other database files on the NAS, and if so where would I put them? I'm thinking that if the library file is only available at home then the ITunes library won't get corrupted at work when it can't find the media, in the event that I accidentally start up itunes eg. while opening an attachment or disc that can be read by Itunes.
iTunes will start up and you will have an empty library.
Can I put the ".itl" and other database files on the NAS, and if so where would I put them?
Yes.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the /Music/iTunes/ folder on the NAS.
Move the /iTunes media/ folder currently on the NAS into the /iTunes/ folder you just copied to the NAS.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the NAS.
You can delete /Music/iTunes/ folder on the internal drive.
If you launch iTunes while NOT comnnected to the NAS, iTunes will recreate the /Music/iTunes/ folder and you will have an empty library.
WHen you are again connected to the NAS, just do step 4 above.
Do you know what the advantages and disadvantages are of having the database files like the ".itl" files stored locally versus on the NAS?
Keeping everyhing together inside the iTunes folder makes it "cleaner" and simpler to manage everything.

How do i manage 1 iphoto library on 2 external drives?

I'm trying to find the most efficient way to manage 1 iphoto library across 2 external drives. In case one of my external drives dies, I'll have a backup.
I know how to copy my iphoto library onto another drive, but my question is how to manage the 2 drives when i add photos/videos to them from my iphone.
Currently, I import photos/vids from iphone onto 1 drive. Then unmount the external drive and hook up another drive. I direct iphoto to use the new drive as it's library and then import the photos/vids again onto the second drive. I make sure the event is named the same, so I have the same iphoto setup across both drives. Then i delete the photos/vids from my iphone.
Is there a more efficient way to do this? Or software that can do this in one step?
Thanks in advance for any help!

You want to have a backup of your working library on your MacBook Pro on each of two external HDs, correct?
If yes then use a backup application like Synk or Synk Pro that can incrementally backup the library, i.e. copy only those new of modified files. If you go to MacUpdate.com and do a search for "backup" you'll get a list of potential candidates.
Then all you need to do is connect EHD#1 and run the backup app to update the library then connect EHD#2 and do the same. It only takes several seconds to make the incremental backup. Synk Pro can be configured to automically start the backup when the external drives are connected. I'm not sure but believe some of the other backup apps could do the same.
OT

Moving iTunes library to an external drive converting to different format

I want to move entire iTunes library to an external drive. I've found several Mac 101's to help but those helps makes no sense. I should be able to move music to another drive and give iTunes the path to find it but that does not work.
All files are iTunes Plus including everything from Amazon but I want to convert everything to a mp3 or other format so all files are independent of iTunes. Lots of old music from CDs I imported and lots from iTunes as well as Amazon. I guess i could sit and burn everything to a physical cd but that would take months and hundreds and hundreds of cds. Can someone advise how I can convert these files and then move to an external drive?
I'm running mountain lion and version 10.7 of iTunes. Two external drives and 145 gigs of music. Any guidance will be most appreciated.
Thanks.

HI Limnos,
Thanks for the reply. Something I forgot (age) to mention, this quest to move the library is precipitated by the Mac drive is running out of space. While I still have about 50 gigs of room left, I was thinking I should just plan on opening up the space by moving the iTunes library.
The other reason is, I read an article about how upon ones death one can not bequeath ones digital music or book files to loved ones. IE; If all of the music was on LP's, tapes, cd's then this physical format can be left in ones final will. But according to what I read and trying to read the user policy by Apple, Amazon etc when one downloads music or a book or whatever that use policy says we don't own the material we only can read it or listen to it. When we die it dies with us. Several people in the article as well as myself believe this is crap. At one time I was purchasing content and then burning it. I stopped because I thought how silly to burn it, I have back ups on an external drive. Man was I wrong. If I have to I'll sit here in my last days and burn hundreds of cd's.
So realizing this, I want to take all my music files and save them to another drive as though this drive was hundreds of cd's. That way all those files in some other format can be played independent of iTunes or transfered to one of my kids PC's or a Mac if they get with the program. If the conversion process destroys the integrity of the file then I have no choice but to burn cd's.
In my estimation, I'm doing nothing wrong. I bought downloadable music just as if I'd bought cd's. I should be able to throw it away or give to my kids upon my death. The kids can decide what they want to do with it once I'm gone. I now no longer buy any music or books in a digital download. All content is purchased with a physical copy. That said, more content providers are moving towards downloads only or like Amazon and Apple towards the cloud and streaming. I realize all this gets into the fair use act but I think most people are unaware of this issue.

Why can't I access my itunes library on an external drive?

Hi -- I successfully moved my itunes library to an external drive a few months ago, and all was going well - I added content to it several times. For some reason now I can't access it, and when I tried to burn a CD into itunes, it created a new library that is on my hard drive. I have done the thing where I go into preferences and select the external drive as the library, but I still can't get to the external drive.
This is particularly urgent because I have a 2-week old baby and I am trying to burn one of those awful "soothing sounds" CDs so I can play it on my ipod while he is sleeping. Thank you!

If the iTunes Library.itl file is also on the external drive, try launching iTunes while holding down the Shift key, and when the dialog window opens that allows you to create a new library or open an existing one, choose to open an existing one, navigate to the folder that contains that library file and select it.
If that works, note for the future that if you launch iTunes when that external drive isn't mounted, iTunes will default back to the normal location on the internal drive and you'll have to repeat the Shift-launch process.
Hope this helps.

HT201625 All my media is on a portable hard drive. The drive letter has changed, and now my library cannot locate anything. Is there a quick way to re-link the library to the new drive location?

All my media is on a portable hard drive. I installed Itunes on a new computer, and scanned the portable hard drive, thus creating a new library on the new computer. The portable drive now has a different drive letter. Now, the library cannot locate any of the songs because when it was created it (I assume) linked to the other drive letter. Now, from what I understand, I can select a (song, album etc) and then browse to the new location. But I have thousands of songs.
I need a way to re-identify as the whole group. And because this is a portable hard drive, this could happen on a daily basis, so I know there must be some other process I am missing. I guess I could delete the library and rescan the drive and create a new library every time I reconnect the hard drive, but that seems inefficient and time consuming. Oh, Windows 8.1 and Itunes 12.1.1.4, if that matters.
Am I missing some simple step to this?

See turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable - the best approach is to have the complete library (database, artwork, etc. as well as media) on the external drive. This layout is not only robust against changes in drive letters, but also means that the external drive can be used with any system running iTunes - just hold down SHIFT while starting iTunes and select the library on the external drive.
A quick fix, of course, is to use Windows' Disk Management facilities to reset the external HDD's drive letter to match the locations stored in the iTunes database.

I backed up my itunes library to an external drive.It's 119 gb.It took about an hour.When I looked at the files it list the artists and albums but then says the files are empty.On the C drive of my own computer it says they are empty.Why would this be ?

When I open up my itunes library on my hard drive it says it contains 119 gb.I tried to look up individual songs under each album and artist.Every time I open an album it says the folder is empty.I exported the library earlier to an external hard drive.It took over an hour.When I look on that library it also says the files are empty,yet when open itunes and play songs they are all still there.Why doesn't the library list each song since it says it contains 119gb?

bzq wrote:
Niel, I tried that several times but the Choose Library screen never appeared.
Then try again.
Make sure iTunes is not running.
Hold the Option key.
Click the iTunes icon in the dock.
Select Choose library...
Select the iTunes folder you copied to the external
ITunes would boot up like usual but the only songs listed were in the Cloud. None of my Apps, Playlists, etc. appeared.
Because you moved the library and have not yet told iTunes to Choose the library you moved.

I was loading some CDs into my iTunes library when the disk drive refused to "suck in" the next CD. Does anyone have a suggest on how I might proceed?

I was loading some CDs into my iTunes library when the disk drive refused to "suck in" the next CD. Does anyone have a suggest on how I might proceed?

Yes, that is a Catch 22. If you have another Mac you can connect your Mac to it in the Target Disk Mode, Transferring files between two computers using FireWire, and use Disk Utility on the second Mac to try to run the Hardware Test from there. Not sure if it's possible to a connected Mac though.
You can try this several times in the Terminal app and then see if a disk can be fully inserted:
Enter the following command followed by the Enter or Return key:
drutil eject
Do it several times and then try another disk. (A long shot).

How to export entire iPhoto library to external hard drive

i am trying to move my library to an external drive and have followed these & similar instructions: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1256384
when it comes to the step of opening iphoto & choosing a library i select the one i dragged to my external drive & iphoto remains empty. why is this happening? i have followed it step by step several times. i've even had a friend help who has done it before & still no photos show up.

You must be doing something incorrectly since this works fine
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

Slow importing photo library from network hard drive

I have about 20GB of photos stored on a network hard drive. I'd like to import them into iPhoto but I don't want to store them locally on my macbook pro as it will take up too much space.
I followed the advice from previous posts and set up my library on the network drive - however the import process is taking way too long. Last night I was able to get about 100 photos in 3 hours. I eventually gave up and stopped the process. I realize that transferring via the wireless network is slowing things down but there has to be a way of doing this that doesn't take several days. I didn't have this problem on my PC using Adobe Photoshop Elements - it was able to import the same number of files from the network drive in less than an hour. I watched iPhoto while it imported a single (small) photo - it took about a minute just to import a file less that 1mb in size.
any sugestions or should I just stick to Windows?
Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I'll try the wired connection tonight - I do have other devices that access photos/mp3's over my wireless network (eg. xbox360) that seem to have no difficulty with speed.
Do you think it would make any difference if I imported in smaller groups (maybe one folder/50 photos at a time) rather than trying to import my entire photo album at once (3000 photos). It might take a few days, but it is a process I could run in the background while I surf. Just curious if iPhoto cares - does it take the same amount of time to import 50 photos 20 times, versus 1000 photos in one shot...?
thanks for the advice
JRP123

Library Split on Several Drives

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