Practical / Theoretical Maximum iTunes Library Size?

Question

I'm about to digitize a rather huge CD library and was wondering whether there are (1) practical and (2) theoretical / technical maximum numbers of tracks an iTunes library can hold.
RE: (1): If you're an iTunes user with a very large library (100,000 tracks or more), does your setup work OK in a single library?
RE: (2): Applefolk: Is there any hard limit (or practical technical limit) to the number of tracks a library contain, assuming disk space is not an issue for either music storage or library file size?
Thanks!
Mac Mini Intel 1.83 GHz /2GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   music on afp-shared NAS
MacBook Pro 2.0/2GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Answer 1

long response ahead...
The gist of your comment was: don't make playlists for each album.
Correct.
It defeats some of the underlying power of iTunes
It doesn’t really defeat it, it simply duplicates what is already there, which makes creating the playlists pretty much a waste of your time.
I am beginning to think that you are correct, although there are still some unresolved browsing issues
Such as?
I got onto this thread when I was searching for some possible causes of the tremendous slowdown I am seeing in my iTunes [I have about 26,000 songs, and perhaps 00 or more playlists, and lots of folders; I organized things this way because it's the way I am used to browsing my library}
And I am thinking that the playlists and folders are what is slowing this magila down.
Could be, but 26000 songs is not a lot.
iTunes uses the library.itl file as the database. The larger it is, the more it will have to search thru to do anything.
There's no way to tell for sure without creating a new library. I have the disk space for this, but I would lose the playcount meta data, so have not tried this yet.
Simply create new library and leave the old one alone.
1 – Quit iTunes.
2 - Copy the iTunes.itl file into the backup folder in the iTunes folder. Just add the date to the end of the filename to keep it straight. (this step is not really necessary but better safe than sorry)
3 - Hold down the Option key when starting iTunes. Select Create new library.
Create it somewhere and make sure it is clearly labeled something like iTunes test library so you won’t “lose” it.
4 - Go to iTunes prefs -> Advanced – Importing. Uncheck Copy files to iTunes library.
5 – Drag the original iTunes music folder (where all your music is currently stored) onto the library in the iTunes source (top left of iTunes window).
It’ll add these files to the new library but will not copy them into the new library folder.
All you are doing is creating a new library.itl where you told it in step 3.
Once done, see how it runs.
To get back to the old library, quit iTunes, hold Shift when starting iTunes and select the original iTunes folder (the default location is Username -> Music -> iTunes). Nothing will have changed at all. You can delete (or keep) the new iTunes folder you tested by simply dragging to the trash.