Using external drive

I've got a MacBook Pro using OS Lion. I keep a lot of podcasts on my hard drive, and I'd like to store them on my external drive to save space on my mac HD. Is there an easy way to do this, or do I just have to copy them onto the external drive and delete them from the Mac drive?

Create a Folder on your External Drive... Open iTunes on your Mac... Drag & Drop the Podcasts to your External Drive...
Test that the Podcast on the External Drive opens and plays...
(I usually use Quicktime for playing these Podcasts)

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Can we use external drive with ipad air

can we use external drive with ipad air?

There are some wifi-enabled drives that allow you to stream content (music, films, tv programmes) to an iPad, but you can't directly connect one to an iPad.

Use external drive for both Time Machine and storage for Back to My Mac

Hi all,
I have been "a Mac" now for over a year and just keep finding cool new things that make me happy I switched. The latest thing is Back to My Mac offered with my Mobile Me account. With a rather convoluted mix of PC/Mac/iOS devices to manage - best $99 I ever spent btw...
I also have a 1TB Time Capsule that I have been using with Time Machine to back up all four of my Mac computers at home. Needless to say, the 1TB is really struggling to handle the amount of data being backed up and certainly leaves no room for anything else.
What I wanted to do was to attach a larger external hard drive via a powered hub to the USB port on the Time Capsule and use it for Time Machine backups while using the internal 1TB drive with Back to My Mac so that I can have remote access to all my data from anywhere without having to leave my computer running at home all the time in order for my laptop to "see" it when I'm away. And, yes, the amount of that data far exceeds what any level of Mobile Me subscription can offer! I should also mention that the hard drive is the only USB device connected through the hub to the Time Capsule at the moment. There are no other devices that might be "getting in the way".
I'm thinking maybe all this is asking too much without the addition of a dedicated file server (Mac Mini, perhaps - not a purchase my budget wants to make).
I understand that the Time Capsule doesn't support partitions, so I bought a Western Digital 2TB Elements drive, connected it to my Macbook Pro and used Disk Utility to reformat the drive from the incompatible NTFS it shipped in to a single, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition. I then made two folders on the drive, one for Time Machine backups and one for Back to My Mac remote storage/access. Great.
However, when I connected the 2TB drive to my Time Capsule I could not see it at all. Time Capsule was reporting problems in the way of a disk error. From within my Airport Utility, I could see the trouble was the external drive. The utility suggested connecting the drive to a Mac and using it's Disk Utility to troubleshoot.
I followed through, checking the disk, etc. and ended up reformatted the drive on my Macbook Pro yet again with the same specifications as before but without the folders and reconnected it to the Time Capsule. Same deal. But now, I can't even remotely connect to the Time Capsule at all. I can see the Time Capsule in the shared area of my Macbook's Finder but can not connect. The connection tries and fails even before it gets to asking me for username and password credentials.
Long story short, first of all, I suppose I would like to know if I'm asking for the impossible?
Second, if what I want to do *is* possible, what steps do I need to take to make it so?
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions you might have.

Well, I have now reformatted/partitioned my poor WD Elements 2TB drive about a dozen times as well as restarted my 1TB Time Capsule so many times it's no wonder it's as confused as I am! <G>
Last night, at your suggestion, William, and in respect for your continued support, I tried creating two 1TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partitions on the WD external USB drive, both with GUID partition tables. Both volumes mounted to my laptop's desktop flawlessly and without issue.
Once the external drive was connected to the Time Capsule, however, it was a crap shoot as to whether or not the drive was recognized at all, reporting a problem with the disk, or, even at one point, mounting one of the two volumes but not both. <sigh>
I read somewhere on the Internet that you need to restart the Time Capsule for volumes on an external USB drive to be recognized.
So I tried that. I connected the freshly partitioned/formatted disk to the Time Capsule and restarted it. This succeed in removing the issue of reporting a nameless drive with a capacity of 0MB. It then reported the drive with its correct name but would not recognize whatever volumes in whatever partitions that particular crack at it contained with the exception of the once, as I mentioned above, when only one of two volumes mounted correctly and was listed with the right name and capacity on the Time Capusule's Setup's Disk tab.
At this point I have given up on my goal to use the external drive with Time Machine to back up my Macs or to hope I will ever be able to see its contents remotely via Back to My Mac. All I would like to do now is simply find a reason why I can't get it successfully connected and playing nice with my Time Capsule in the first place!
Any further suggestions or advice as to what steps I might take next would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you all.

Use external drive for Time Capsule backups AND file storage?

I have an external drive formatted by my MBP. I'm using it to store my iTunes music library and iPhoto pics. Can I use the drive for Time Capsule backups as well?

Yes, but that is not recommended. Storage and backup should be kept separate to reduce the chances of a disk failure. This is especially important because you cannot even partition a Time Capsule drive. Go get a separate drive for your storage needs. Get another drive for a second backup and use a different method of backup than Time Machine

How to use External Drive for Users Directory

I just did a clean install on my Mac Mini - I have over 4 TB of storage attached, but the main drive (160 GB) keeps filling up. What is the best way to have the Users directory located on an external drive?
Thanks for your help,
Chris

Think about it for a second. What would happen if that external drive wasn't connected for some reason? Maybe it died the night before, as external drives have a habit of doing. How are you going to log into the system?
If the main drive is filling up, it says that you aren't making effective use of the attached storage. There's nothing saying you have to keep video files in the Movies folder, and music in the Music folder, etc. Find some things, that aren't your user profile, and move them to your external storage. Or consider putting in a larger internal drive.
< Edited by Host >

Using External Drive with Itunes

I have a very large Music and Video collection on a MY BOOK 1TB drive (810GB file size) I want to use it as my primary I tunes Music library. I have followed the instructions on Itunes support and created a new file on the drive and redirected I tunes to that file but the content does not show up in I tunes on my macbook and the only way I seem to be able to get the them to show up is actually open the file and listen to each song the problem is there are 300,000 + songs any ideas???

When you moved your music did you move the whole iTunes folder or just the iTunes Music folder? If you moved the whole folder including the library files hold down the Option key on your keyboard when opening iTunes. In the resulting dialogue you will get the option to create a new library or navigate to an existing one. Navigate to the external drive where you placed the copy of the library file and open it up: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file
You might also find this article useful: iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive

Using external drive with iMac as startup

I have an iMac that the hard drive is failing thus I purchased an external drive to use as a startup up drive connected to the iMac. How reliable is this setup and what are the cons/pros in operating this way?

Assuming you bought a FW800 drive the performance should be OK, not as good as your old internal HD but useable. If you bought a USB drive the performance is going to be very slow. As far as reliability it should be fine assuming you bought a decent quality HD. However why not just get the internal HD replaced? If you decide to move forward with the external HD after you install OS X onto it don't forget to make sure it's set as your Startup drive in System Preferences.

Can i use external drive with pc and mac??? files be recognised by both??

hi
i have two external hard drives, with stuff from my pc on them.
can i plug them into my macbook? and just copy files?
usb hard drives.
one i think is one or the other, mac or pc, not both at same time, unless i partition and format i think. maybe the other one too.
i have a 8gb file on my pc, im trying to get into my macbook.
how can i???
i have a 160gb ipod, its only 30gb full, and pc says not enough space on it.
why is this???? the file is only 8gb......and theres over 100gb free on my ipod.
anyone help?
cheers

If your iPod is formatted FAT32 there is a 4 GB file size limit. Obviously an 8 GB file exceeds the limit.
In order to use any drive on both a Mac and a PC with full read/write capability the drive must be formatted MS-DOS (FAT16 or FAT32.) A drive formatted NTFS is read-only on a Mac unless you use third-party software such as MacFuse with NTFS-3G or Paragon NTFS.

Can't switch iPhoto Libraries to use external drive

I'm using iPhoto 4.0.3 on an old iBook G3, and I keep my photos on an external drive, but right now I can't access it, because my computer seems to have created its own imaginary version of the external drive, which I can't access. (I'll explain it better below.)
In other words, if I open iPhoto, there are photos there (165 of them, all fairly recent), but if I try to find an iPhoto Library on my hard drive, or any record of the photos in it, I come up empty. I must have accidentally imported photos when my external drive wasn't connected, but now I can't figure out where my computer actually put those photos, so that I can delete that iPhoto Library and go back to using the iPhoto Library on my external drive.
Here's what I've found so far:
If I open Finder and search for iPhoto, there is no iPhoto Library.
If I search for the name of one of the photos that's displayed in iPhoto, I get 0 results.
If I search for all files with the .jpg extension, none of the photos that's showing in iPhoto shows up.
If I create an album and put some photos in it, and then search for that album name, I get 0 results.
BUT, if I try to EXPORT a photo from iPhoto, I get some clue to where these photos are hiding - the default location to export photos to is XXX's Computer/Macintosh HD/Volumes/FANTOM/Pictures/iPhoto Library. That's the location of the iPhoto Library on my external drive.
Also, based on an answer to another forum question, I opened Libraries/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist in Text Edit and searched for key>RootDirectory, and the directory it gives there is /Volumes/FANTOM/Pictures/iPhoto Library. The only problem is, I've disconnected my external drive and restarted my computer, and iPhoto is still displaying 165 pictures in my photo library.
So it seems like my computer THINKS it's looking on my external drive, but actually it's looking at some 'volume' that's on the hard drive - and even when the external drive is connected, the only photos it shows are the ones in this volume, not the ones in my actual iPhoto Library. I want to be able to switch to my normal photo library, but the only way I can do that is if I figure out where this mystery photo library is located, and rename it. Does anybody know how to do this?
Thanks for your help.
iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

You don't say whether you've restricted your search, or where you are searching. If you haven't renamed your iPhoto Library folder and it doesn't show up in a search, then it isn't there.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "imaginary version of external drive". Disconnect the drive, and there should be very little left to it's imagination. If iPhoto launches, then it's not looking for the iPhoto Library folder on the external drive -- nothing imaginary.
The destination to which a photo is exported has nothing to do with where iPhoto might have its library (real, or imagined). An "exported" photo is, by definition, not a part of your iPhoto library -- all you're doing is drawing conclusions from unrelated information.
Quit iPhoto if it's running, disconnect your external drive, and delete the "com.apple.iPhoto.plist" file from your user's Library >Preferences folder. If iPhoto starts without any unusual prompts, then it is (and likely, has been all along) using the iPhoto Library folder from your start-up drive's Pictures folder.

Transferring data from pc to mac using external drive usb

is there anything "special" you need to do to transfer data from Win 7 to MacBook Air using a USB 3.0 external drive?

No.
(118476)

Using external drive between PC and mac

My mp3 files are all in an external drive used on a windows computer, connected by USB. If I were to get a mac, would I be able to copy those files into the hard drive of the mac?

If I were to get a mac, would I be able to copy those files into the hard drive of the mac?
Yes.
(47757)

Want to use external drive for new Mac, fresh iTunes

So I recently got a new Mac and have not transferred any music to it yet. In fact I haven't even launched iTunes. I want to store all of my music and play it from an external drive. I have found articles detailing how to transfer your library from your internal drive to an external one but I don't have an internal library of music on this machine. How do I set up iTunes to play from an external library for the first time? And how do I add my backed up music from my previous iTunes to that external drive's new music library? Do I just drag the files into the folder and hope iTunes will recognize them?
Thanks!

okay, i had to collect my thoughts for a moment
... but I don't have an internal library of music on this machine.
is *this machine* the new Mac ?
How do I set up iTunes to play from an external library for the first time?
the files will have to be added to iTunes. however, with the correct settings, they can be put straight on the external.
in order to set up iTunes on the new Mac, you will have to launch it. with the external drive mounted on your new Mac's desktop, go iTunes > preferences > advanced and point +iTunes media folder location+ to the external. this will cause iTunes to put all newly added content in that location.
also on the advanced tab, check +keep iTunes media folder organized+ and +copy files to ... when adding to library+.
And how do I add my backed up music from my previous iTunes to that external drive's new music library?
did you back up the music to disk ? if so, you should probably authorize iTunes with your iTMS account details, then just pop in the disk(s) and add the content to your library.
if you have backed up to an external HD, use the +add to library+ command from the file menu and navigate to the folder containing your media files.
JGG
edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly)

I am using external drive for iTunes why does it put art on internal

I have my itunes library on an external drive which works quite well for the most part. However it keeps recreating an itunes folder and subfolders on my internal drive mainly artwork and .itdb, .itl and .xml files in user/music/itunes. this is quite annoying because I am trying to keep as much data as possible off my internal drive for space considerations. I have tried deleting these files but itunes just recreates them. Does anyone have any ideas?

pharmercist wrote:
Solved the problem. When I initially moved itunes to the external drive I copied the entire iTunes folder and seleted the appropriate library drive in preferences
This is not the correct way to do it.
This still uses the iTunes folder on the internal for the iTunes library file, artwork etc.
Holding Option and Choose library... tells iTunes to use everything in the iTunes folder you select.
Holding Option and Choose library... you do not need to change the Tunes prefs > Advance - iTunes media folder location.

Using external drive for itunes

Hope someone can help with this: I am going travelling and want to take my music library, at present in itunes on my desktop G4. I have copied this library onto a 100GB portable hard drive, and would now like to get itunes on my macbook to refer to this library on my hard drive. I tried going to preferences and changing the itunes music folder location to
Lacie Drive:music:itunes:itunes music:
but after I okay this, nothing happens, the itunes on my macbook is still full of the few songs I have put there, and no sign of the 2.99GB of music that I copied off the G4.
Ideally I want to keep the hard drive of the macbook as empty as possible, so would like to use itunes just from the external drive, plugging it in whenever I want to use itunes.
Many thanks,
Hugh
G5, macbook pro, G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

By changing the location, you only told iTunes where to store the next ripped CD or purchased music. iTunes doesn't know where your music is.
The song locations are stored in the 'iTunes Library' file.
If you're using iTunes 7, there could be an easy fix.
First, copy the entire iTunes folder from the G4 to the external drive (not just the iTunes Music folder inside it).
Then connect the drive to the MacBook and hold the Option button down when you run iTunes. Keep holding it down until a window pops up that lets you choose a library (or create a new one).
Choose the iTunes folder on the external.
iTunes now should recognize it.
Hope this helps.
M

Use external drive for windows and mac

Hello,
I just bought a external 320Gb Western Digital Drive. I would like to use
the drive for windows and mac.I will not like to make partation on the drive
to use it on both operating systems. Is there any formating system with which i can use in both operating systems? I would like to use time machine feature on that drive also.
Thanx.

If you want to use a disk for both PC/Mac file storage and Time Machine, you will have to create two partitions. Partitioning is sort of like creating multiple virtual disks on the same physical disk. One partition should be formatted for PC (which the Mac can also use) and the other should be formatted for HFS+ (Mac only) which is what Time Machine requires. The Disk Utility application makes partitioning and formatting very easy.

Previously windows used external drive to be used in mac (and windows)

i´ve just bought a macbook and planned to use a couple of external drives i previously used on my pc with time machine and whatnot. only it seems they are write-protected in mac os, so they can´t be used as back-up drives. do i have to format them again using mac, or do it in windows, or is there a way around this? and can it be done so both mac and windows recognizes it as writable?
thanks

Dave Sawyer wrote:
They're probably formatted NTFS, which Mac OS X can read but not write. There are third-party NTFS drivers, one open-source and one commercial, but you can just reformat the drive as FAT32 (MS-DOS format in Disk Utility) and it will work just fine with both your Mac and Windows systems.
If the OPs intent is to use it with Time Machine, the external drive needs to be formatted HFS+ (Mac OS Extended (Journaled) via Disk Utility. I believe there is a Windows app that permits viewing of HFS+ drives. Since you have a 'couple' of external HDDs, it's probably best to use a dedicated HDD just for TM backups.

Using external drive

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