Two hard drives and iTunes?

Hello all: I have two HDs in my Quicksilver, and was thinking of using the extra one to store and play all of my music. I aim to import all of my CDs and store them away. So, my questions:
1. How do I import the tracks to the 2nd drive and play them through my original iTunes app on the first drive, which is an 80-gig drive with 50 gigs available?
2. Is doing this to save space on the first drive worth it?
3. Related: I have a first-generation iPod, which I love and which is still going strong, but I do not think it plays AAC format tracks. That said, what is the difference between AAC and Apple Lossless Encoder? I want to make sure I import the tracks at the highest quality feasible through iTunes.
Thanks
G4 Quicksilver and 17i PB, Pismo Mac OS X (10.4.5) Germany 2006 - Go FCK!

1)
Create a folder on your 2nd HD which should contain all your music. You can name it whatever you want.
In iTunes go to Preferences>Advanced>General and set the 'iTunes Music folder location' to the folder you just created.
Check the boxes 'Keep iTunes Music folder organized' and 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library'
Select 'Consolidate Library...' in the Advanced menu in the menubar.
this will copy all files to the second HD.
After verifying all files are on your 2nd HD, delete the music files on the 1st one.
Edit: Be sure not to delete the 'iTunes Library' file. This article tells you more about the library files:
What are the iTunes library files?
2)
Freeing space on your startup HD can improve stability in case you don't have at least 10% of free disk space.
3)
My 1st gen. 5GB iPod (with bad battery) does play AAC including protected AAC (purchased songs)
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)
Message was edited by: macmenno

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Two hards drives and iTunes

Hello all: I have 2 HDs in a G4 Quicksilver, and want to know if it is worth isolating all of my iTunes music on a partition of my secondary HD ... I want to rip all of my CDs and store them, due to apartment size, etc. So, if I choose to isolate iTunes from my main Tiger HD, how do I do so? A short rundown on the pros/cons would be appreciated.
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To store your music files on another drive follow these steps:
1) Don't move the iTunes application. It must remain on your main drive.
2) Don't move the (home)/Music/iTunes folder on your main drive. The main library file (which contains your playlists, playcounts, ratings, etc.) is called "iTunes Library" and cannot be moved from this location.
3) Open iTunes and open preferences->Advanced->general, change the music folder location to a folder of your choice on the other drive. Close preferences.
Presto! Now when you rip CDs the files will be stored on the other drive.
You'll want to make sure to keep a regular backup of the "iTunes Library" file I mentionned. And it's also good practice to make regular backups onto an external drive or data DVDs of your music files.
Does that help?
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how to use external hard drive and iTunes together?

Yes I did get to that part.... I went trough external to retrive itunes folder... When I selected the folder, it said that it was locked, choose another folder... I then went to my external again to my itunes folder and and used command I to see if folder was locked and it wasn't.... it was suggested on another forum to reboot.. which I did and still same problem... All I want to do is link my external hard drive that has my itunes playlist from another Mac to my new one.. and to also use the external as the main source for adding new songs to my playlist...

I'm trying to transfer my iTunes library from my old Windows-based Acer to my new MacBook Pro. The Acer has two hard drives, and I've had to split my music between the two drives in order to hold it all.

Neither drive has enough room to consolidate the entire library. And over time (for reasons I just chalk up to the Acer being a bad computer), I've inadvertently created multiple "libraries". After everything went missing somehow a couple of years ago, I had to import a previous library called "Previous iTunes Library," and my library has annoyingly enough been called that ever since. What's the best way to make all this get fixed into a new complete library on my new Mac? I have an external hard drive, and if I cleared everything else off of it, it might be able to store the entire consolidated library. Would that work?

It sounds like the library might have been placed in your Home/Library folder which is invisible.
NOTE: In Lion and Mountain Lion the Home/Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.
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Hopefully someone there can help me with this problem which is related to backing up using external hard drives and two MACs. I back up using my Laptop and G5 by periodically copying the most up to date Itunes library to the other one. I use the external hard drive to copy them back and forth while at the same time, having a 3rd copy. However, everytime I do this, when I go to play a "purchased" song from my purchased songs in the library, I get the message that this is the 2nd and then 3rd and the 4th....computer I am downloading to and I only have 5 allowable downloads. Evidently, Itunes is not recognizing that this is a same computer that I have been using as a back up. Hopefully this problem is clear to those of you reading this. Any suggestions?
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Yes, It will erase the content and replace with content from the new hard drive. This is one of many reasons to always maintain a backup (not just try to backup once failure is certain).
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Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
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Hi,
I have been asked to play music at a venue on Saturday and I have over 800 albums on my external hard drive (mp3 format).
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gusaphit wrote:
so because you have kept your itunes folder and library on an EHD, I take it you have also deleted the actual Itunes program folder from your computer's C drive?
Not the program folder, iTunes folder where your music library and ancillary files are kept. I haven't had my iTunes music on any internal hard drive on any computer for years.
I am trying to delete the music/movies off of this PC as it is my work station as well.
What steps do I need to take in order to successfully ensure that my Itunes will be secured on my EHD and fully operable should I want to add more music, purchase more music, or delete/re-arrange music as I am doing now.
Check in Preferences>Advanced to make sure that iTunes is pointed to your EHD. If it is, you should be fine. Then, just to make sure that everything is where it should be consolidate your library: File>Library>Organize Library.
Follow-up: If I move the program over to my EHD does that mean I can use any PC to download music into the Itunes library from my EHD?
I don't think you want to move the iTunes.exe file to your EHD. As I understand it, iTunes isn't really happy there and it takes some work to get it there. Just move the library.
I'm asking because you responded and you're cute.
Very happy to help but really, I'm not that cute.

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I'm very sorry if this has been answered, but I've searched a lot and haven't quite found the precise question I'm asking...
My household has two iBooks (G3 and G4) wirelessly networked through an original Airport. Our music is completely digital, and we have no stereo. Each iBook has a different iTunes library. When we want to play the G3's music, we connect the G3 to a good set of speakers (pretending to be a stereo) through the mini jack. Same for the G4. This would be fine, except we're both running out of internal hard drive space.
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http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5031245?site=sr:SEARCH:MAINRSLTPG
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3945658?site=sr:SEARCH:MAINRSLTPG
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iTunes
Here is my impossible question that many people keep giving me the wrong answer or at least differing answers. This involves "senior advisors" in apple.
Few things to note:
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- I have the newest gen Apple TV
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I don't consider myself extremely gifted when it comes to using computers but I understand things from trial and error.
I don't want to have any music on my internal SSD (MacBook air). I want to keep all of it on my external.
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I put my file location of iTunes media folder onto my external.
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All works great and works like it should. I can unplug this external - and my iTunes won't open of course cause my external isn't plugged in. I understand that. When I plug it back in it works again and I'm happy.
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I unplugged my external and plugged it into my USB port into the back of my AirPort Extreme. Connected to the external via MacBook Air.
When I opened iTunes all my music was gone.
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I would appreciate detailed instructions on what to do?
Everyone gives me wrong answers and many people say this can't be done!
Hope everything was worded properly and makes a bit of sense!

I can understand why you'd want to attempt this if you didn't want to drag your laptop all over your house, porting the external HD along, but do you really need full iTunes access in every room on the laptop? If not—if you basically use your laptop in one area, forget ever seving media from the base station; just connect your external HD to the laptop and turn on Home Sharing for ATV, streaming with AirPlay, etc... I have three computers connected to three externals, all serving via home sharing to three sepaprate ATVs. This works well.
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Welcom to AD!
Take a look at the note from this article
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
+Note: If you move your library to an external drive, you'll need to power up and connect the drive before starting iTunes. If you don't, iTunes will prompt you to either locate the library or to create a new library ( *which will result in an empty library* ). No matter what, it's always a good idea to have a backup of the media you have in iTunes.+
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I've had real trouble with my external logitec USB 2 (that's the japanese logitec not LOGITECH) hard drive.
I had my itunes music folder on it, and when i connected my shuffle and tried to transfer songs, itunes would usually freeze. so i transferred all the songs onto my ibook instead and it works fine as long as the external drive isn't connected, BUT get this: if i have the harddrive connected to my ibook, itunes will freeze when i try to transfer tunes from my ibook to my shuffle. i don't get it. unless my ibook is confusing the two drives? sorry, i don't know much about this. i've tried reinstalling itunes and i have the latest version. i've also reformatted my shuffle. but no luck.
any ideas???
thanks!
David.

Nick,
I am by no means an iTunes guru and I haven't come across this problem myself.....but this is what I would try.
Select all of the songs in your iTunes library and delete them from the library only.
File > Add Folder to Library > browse to your folder on your external and hit OK
I have to do this every time I add new songs to my MP3 folder, as iTunes can't figure out that most of these songs already exist in the library. It then decides to make multiple instances of the same song and therefore showing that I have tons of duplicate songs.
If you need this for transferring your music to your iPod, then by all means more power to you.
If you are doing this to play your music only, then I strongly suggest looking into purchasing a different music player. I personally use Musicmatch Jukebox for several reasons;
1. It allows the user to sort thier music library in MANY different ways using various criteria (not just one option to sort music).
2. It allows for many more fields for your ID3 meta tags, so you can have featured artists shown on compilation CD's.
3. It's been around for a LONG time and incorporates the feedback they receive from the customers.
4. You now have the option to buy it with all future updates in one price.
Hope that this helps you out....
Cheers
Windows XP

Two hard drives and iTunes?

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