Managing a large library: replacing a single media-filled hard drive; Drobo and iTunes?

Question

Hi! To begin with, thank you for your time in reading my query... I am finding out that I am unique in having an iTunes library as large as mine: it is presently approximately 11Tb, spanning over 4x2TB and 1x3TB drives (5 drives total).  I have over the course of the last 8-9 years been digitalizing and converting an extensive cd/dvd collection (with the intent of packing them all away into storage).  The library is organized via iTunes Media Folder organization, and new items are copied into the media files: when one hard drive becomes full, I simply change the location to a new drive.  This has worked well and have only had one challenge to date: when I moved from a PC to Mac, but I (or more accurately the library) survived the ordeal...!
How do I replace one hard drive and have iTunes still find the media?  I am beginning to feel a bit queasy about one of the earlier hard drives, and feel it is about time to replace it with a new one.  I have NO idea, however, on the easiest way to do this... consolidating library won't work as it would want to move the entire 11TB of media... moving via Finder the media to a new source and then dragging to the library simply doubles the entries in iTunes... deleting the files in iTunes and adding again from new source would lose all play counts, metadata... years of careful tagging and album art additions lost (not even remotely optional!).  I think I could call myself somewhat an "advanced user" in iTunes, playing around with scripts, etc, and I feel like the solution is staring me straight in the face... but for the life of me I can't figure this one out!!!
Moving media to a Drobo? An aside (oh, call it question part II...!), I'm considering moving to a Drobo 4-bay ( http://www.drobo.com/products/drobo.php ) for the media library: presently I have each media hard drive backed up to another hard drive, but it is anything but frequent... or a simple task... and I like the level of security and ease of use the Drobo claims.  I of course would still need to split the media library over 2 Drobo's...  feedback on any experience with using Drobo's with iTunes? 
All suggestions welcomed! 

Answer 1

Funny Monkey wrote:
...if I highlight just one album within iTunes and then "consolidate library", it will move ONLY that one album to the new location (as determined by the location listed within my advanced settings)?  Seriously?!!!
yes.
for such a small task, you could also use this script:
Re-Locate Selected v1.1 
This script will re-locate the files of the selected iTunes tracks from their current location to a new user-chosen folder. iTunes will be updated with each track's new location and all of each track's meta-data will be preserved. Option to remove the files from their original location. (I don't advise using this on more than an album's worth of tracks or so at a time; re-locating dozens of tracks' files to a single folder doesn't seem to make much sense to me.)
 NOTE: If your "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" preference set, you will not be able to create new folders in or re-locate files within the iTunes Media folder; outside is OK.
why did you choose to use a RAID 5 config vs. any other config?
because RAID 5 allows for one failed drive in the four drive configuration.
read more about it here.
You decided to continue to use your original firewire externals as back-up: does the RAID configuration not adequately do this? 
i'm paranoid when it comes to my precious iTunes library
Speed with the NAS, especially performing simultaneous read-write operations: adequate?
more than adequate. however, all my gear is hardwired to my time capsule (except the iDevices, naturally) so i'm getting gigabit speed and a lot of bandwidth.
one thing, though: i have set my NAS to spin down the hard drives after 20 minutes of inactivity. so, if you watch a 1 ½ hour movie, and select the next, you will experience a short delay until the drives spin up again.
never had that with my directly attached firewire drives but it's a small price to pay for the amount of space and features you get from a NAS.
so, if you opt for a NAS, i would recommend this particluar item (what i use). a fella called Stephen Inoue blogs about Macs and Synology. you might like to pop by and have a look:
http://macsynology.wordpress.com/