Movie files to External Hard Drive - HELP

While I still have roughly 35 GB left on my hard drive, I do plan to purchase an external hard drive to additional space. With that said, my lack of knowledge around the inner workings of iMovie and the physical movie data make me pause in terms of moving items over to the external hard drive. I don't want to (a) lose anything or (b) cause issues with any of my existing projects and associated web gallery postings.
Any suggestions on how and what to transition onto an external hard drive? In terms of my historic use, I typically load movie clips from my Sony HD camera, which in turn places these files into the event library. I have then taken snippets and placed them into various projects. I primarily use these projects to share via web gallery, with little creation of any other movie-type files.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any similar advice for photos (which I typically edit in iPhoto) would be appreciated as well.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Basically, just make sure the external drive is formatted as a Mac OS Extended drive and make sure you perform all transfers to the external drive from within iMovie '08. (I.e., doing so externally can orphan resource pointers active in projects currently being edited.) Current Events on your internal drive can be dropped to the external drive once it is visible within iMovie '08 and the application will handle the creation any needed folders, transfer the data files, as well as, update the the resource pointers for any projects in the process of being edited.
Any similar advice for photos (which I typically edit in iPhoto) would be appreciated as well.
See iPhoto Help ("Moving your iPhoto Library folder to a new location") for specific instructions and warnings.

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Whenever I try to move files from internal hard drive to my external finder freezes it. I have over 5 TBs of free space on my external, so I know it's not a space issue. This happens no matter the size of the file. It starts the copy and then will freeze before it finishes. If I try to force quit and select relaunch it acts like it is relaunching but my icons never re-appear and the command bar at the top never returns. So I end up having to hard boot.
I just reinstalled the 10.5.8 combo update and verified both hard disks, if any repairs came up I repaired and then did the same with disk permissions....it's still freezing on me. I am frustrated because there are some files I'd really like to move to my external raid hard drive but I'm not able to.
The freezing happens if I'm trying to transfer files from a disc or an additional external HD. My internal HD is only so big and the external Raid drive is for my capture scratch on Final Cut Pro and I'm even having issues capturing to that drive. Everything wants to be on my internal HD and that doesn't work for me.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sean Dale1 wrote:
Do you get any error messages and if so what are they? Do you have any problems copying files off the problem drive back to your Mac or do the freezes only occur when copying to the external?
No I don't get any error messages, the finder just freezes and when I try to relaunch finder it doesn't relaunch properly..all icons are missing and I'm not able to access the the task bar to properly shut down so I have to hard boot.
It happens only when trying to save files to the external, whether through drag and drop or within programs. I am able to access files on the external and copy files from there to my internal without problems.
Have you tried attaching this drive to another Mac and if so do you get the same issues?
I don't have another Mac to attach the drive to.
How is this RAID attached, SCSI, FireWire, SATA or what? How was the RAID created, Disk Utility or third party software and have you verified the integrity of the RAID?
The RAID is attached via SCSI. In an attempt to solve this finder issue I re-installed the drivers to the most current drivers available and in doing so updated any firmware....and there was no change. I was not the one who set up the RAID so I don't know how it was created. It's an Enhance UltraStore R16 and I've been using it without issues since January 2007 and this freezing thing has been intermittent for a few months now but now it's constant and annoying. I've verified the disk through disk utility but I don't have any software to check the integrity otherwise. Do you have any recommendations as to what software I could use to do this?
Message was edited by: Emily80

Automator to move files to external hard drive?

Is it possible to have "automator move files uploaded to my computer automatically from my phone, via motocast (Droid Razr Maxx) which sits in a "pictures" subfolder, and move it to the external hard drive i use to back up my macbook air weekly? I occasionally take photos and videos and were wondering if this is at all possible to do being that I only connect my external hard drive occasionally and not regularly. The external hard drive was partitioned to have a back up drive for time machine and another drive for other (pics&vids) use.
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Any help is greatly appreciated.

sdiaz34 wrote:
The external hard drive was partitioned to have a back up drive for time machine and another drive for other (pics&vids) use.
If it is possible can the automator task then trash all files in original pictures subfolder when task is complete to avoid any memory use on macbook air?
You really don't want to do that.
You'll have only one copy of the files, on the external HD. When (not if) it fails, they'll be lost.
For best results, get another external HD for your photos. Then let Time Machine back up both your internal HD and the external. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #32 for details.

How to find movie file from external hard drive in imovie?

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For iMovie to see your file, it must be either on the internal drive, or it can also be on an external drive that is formatted as Mac OSX Extended (Journaled). (Not FAT32).
For the internal drive, your clips must be stored in a folder inside the Movies/iMovie Events/ folder.
For the external drive, your clips must be stored in a folder within the iMovie Events folder at the top level of the drive. Move your files there and then start iMovie, and it should see them.
Message was edited by: AppleMan1958

Best way to move files to external hard drive

Hi All,
My internal hard drive is nearly full. I''ve bought a 2TB external hard drive to copy my Aperture library to.
I'm working on a 27" iMac (10.6.8), with a 1TB hd and Aperture 2.0. External hard drive is an Omega eGo with firewire 800 (Mac Format).
Looking at some of the posts here, its seems that the simplest method is to copy the library (drag and drop) to a folder on the external HD. Then double click to open, at which point this will be the default library. After checking all ok, delete the original library.
I've also read suggestions that running your library on an external hard drive compromises speed, and that the files should be referenced externally with the library running internally for maximum performance.
Can anyone give me some advice as the best method to work work from the external hard drive? All my files are currently managed (around 820 GB)
I like the idea of something so simple as drag and drop to change my library's location, the delete the old one. but if I'm going to switch to external hd, I'd like to set it up correctly, from the start.
Thanks for your help.
Richard

Why not do this. Copy the library over to the external drive, leave the library on the internal drive alone for the moment and run off the external library.
If Aperture performs OK for your needs leave the library on the external and delete the library on the internal drive. During this period of testing you could switch between the two in order to get a real fell for how one performs over the other.
If it turns out that having the library on the external drive is causing problems then keep the library on the internal drive and switch to a referenced master setup with the masters on the external drive.
Remember that while you are testing this out and switching between the two libraries changes made to one library ill not be reflected in the other. So just use this time for testing and make sure any work you do in one library you can redo in the other.

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Thank you for your reply and kind welcome.
That's a great tip, but that box was already checked, so I'm afraid that wasn't a solution. The problem ended up "solving itself" after I left my machine off for the day while I went to work. I may never know why that error occurred, but I certainly don't care, as long as it doesn't happen again. Take care.

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See Mac OS X: "Broken folder" icon, prohibitory sign, or kernel panic when computer starts
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106805
 Cheers, Tom

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Hello bbryson68,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
From your post I understand you're wanting to move iMovie project and event data to another drive. I found the following information in the iMovie help that answers your question.
Copy or move projects, events, or clips between libraries or storage devices
Connect a storage device that contains the target library to your Mac, or copy the target library to your Mac.
Choose File > Open Library, and choose an option from the submenu.You can choose from recently opened libraries, locate an existing library on your Mac, or create a new library.The selected library is opened in the Libraries list, with the first event selected and its contents displayed in the browser.
In the Libraries list, select the event that contains the item you want to move or copy.
In the browser, select the item you want to move or copy.Tip: To select multiple clips or projects in the same library, hold down the Command key as you click the items you want to select, or drag a selection rectangle around the items.
Do one of the following:
To move items between events or libraries: Drag the clip or project to another event or library.
To copy items between events or libraries: Option-drag the clip or project to another event or library by first starting to drag and then holding down the Option key as you drag.
Work with multiple libraries
http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov3fa25bae7
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My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?

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If you want to just extract the playlists from your iPod, plug it in iTunes. When it appears under devices, right->click on it and choose Export Playlists. Save them to a location such as your desktop and them import them into your library once you have copied and imported all of your music back into it.
See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
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<edited>
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How Do I: store my iTunes Movies on an external hard drive?

Since my iMac hard drive space (2 terabite) is almost half-full of the Movies I have in my iTunes, I would like to be able to set up my iTunes to store and play the movies from an external hard drive. I just bought a 4 terabite G-Drive for doing this. I would also like to be able to view the movies on my two differant Apple TV's.
If anyone has any information on this it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
kalton

I have almost zero experience with Apple TVs. I saw one once in an Apple Store, across the room.
The easy way:
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option (shift on Windows) key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
The easier hard way:
You will need delete the movies from your iTunes collection. Drag them to a folder on the other drive. Hold down the option key and drag that folder back to an iTunes window. Opton will prevent the files from being copied back to the drive. Drawbacks: 1) You must remember to do this each time you add an item or it will copy it to the drive. 2) Deleting it will remove things( metadata) such as ratings, last played, date added.
The tougher hard way:
Re-assign your media folder to a folder on the external. Consolidate just the movies to the external. Re-assign media back to regular location. Advantages: Will keep your metadata. Note - I have never done this.
Whatever you do, back up first.

APPLE TV (GEN 2): How to view the movies on my external hard drive?

Hello,
I have a Macbook Pro, with Itunes. I already know how to set-up HOME SHARING with the APPLE TV that allows me to view my Itunes library from my TV.
But on my laptop, with the FRONT ROW feature, I set-up a ALIAS in the movie folder on my computer so that the files from my external hard drive were viewable from the movies folder in FRONT ROW. This great feature now allows me to view my content on my laptop (on Itunes) and the movies on my external hard drive, all on FRONT ROW on the Macbook Pro.
When I opened and set-up the Apple TV (Gen 2), I was surprised that it isn't like FRONT ROW. Instead, it only allows the content on my Itunes to be viewed.
This is a downside because I have only 35 GB free on my internal hard-drive, and all of 350+ GB of movies are on my EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE (Western Digital MY BOOK). Also, the movies files on my external hard drive are .AVI, .M4V, and .MP4
Another question I have is what is the USB port on the back of the APPLE TV for? Can it be used for the external hard drive or no?
Basically, I want to watch all the movies from my external hard drive on my TV.
Can I set this up to happen and how?
If not, what should I do to be able to watch the movies from my computer/external hard drive on my TV?
*Please share as much information as you all can because I need to view all my options (if any) in this situation and I value all the advice....THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!*
EQUIPMENT:
Laptop: MACBOOK PRO 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MHZ DDR3 MAC OS X 10.6.6
Apple TV: Gen 2
TV: Vizio 37" HDTV HMDI LCD
External Hard Drive: Western Digital MY BOOK (USB 2.0 + Firewire)

I followed exactly what you advised, and it all worked. I did convert the files first that were .AVI ---> .MP4 (the audio and video came out beautifully when viewed). I organized my files around a bit, and then I went into Itunes---> Preferences---> Advanced---> Changed where I want to grab my movies from. It keep all my previous music, tv, movies, podcasts files that I had in ITunes, and just "added" the new content without disrupting anything in my Itunes at all. I LOVED IT...so simple in the end.
The files did take a while to convert, but I only had to do the ones that I had that were labeled ".AVI". The program, HAND BRAKE, allowed me to set up a "batch" and I had them converting during the afternoon and into the evening.
All in all....THANK YOU/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic__ _/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/ migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-a vail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstat ic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-ima ges/migration-img-not-avail.png
Since whenever I open my Itunes, all the movies display well, and so my APPLE TV can now view all my "content" in Itunes. I thought I was going to have to return that APPLE TV since I couldn't figure a way around it, and all in all, it wasn't all that bad of a process to convert and then change file location in preferences.
MANY THANKS and HAVE A GREAT WEEK

Movie files to External Hard Drive - HELP

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