Why is my iTunes so slow when used on an external drive

I have an late 2006 iMac Intel 2.0GHz w/ 512mb ram, Model MA200LL. It has a 250GB HD. 13.4GB of used space on the internal HD. The problem has occurred when it had Tiger and has persisted through Leopard 10.5.2.
I have 125GB of music on a Seagate Free Agent 250GB external hard drive. When I try to delete a song it takes 87 seconds to delete. When I scroll through the 22,222 songs I get a spinning wheel for 10 - 15 seconds. Switching songs works very good.
I used the same external drive on my Mac Pro (2.66GHz - 1GB Ram) and when I try the same actions it works instantly.
The same issues arises when I used a 500GB WD World Book external hard drive.
I have run Onyx which reported no problems with the internal hard drive.
Should I expect to delete files quicker on the iMac in iTunes? If there is a problem, what can I do so that I get iTunes to perform better using an external drive?
Thank you.

One thing that you can do in general to help overall performance is upgrade your RAM. The late 2006 iMacs should be able to take up to 3GB of RAM(some people install 4GB anyway) but even going up to 2GB should help your system a lot. Besides RAM is cheap these days: http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=288&type=Memory&TI=3454&shoup grds=Show+Upgrades
The Free Agent drives are USB only so for one thing USB will be slower than your internal drive by at least half, however it still shouldn't take 10-15 seconds to access unless something else is going on. What version of iTunes do you have? Did you try Repairing the Disk Permissions and Verifying your internal drive? Try resetting the SMC and see if that helps: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303446
Should I expect to delete files quicker on the iMac in iTunes? If there is a
problem, what can I do so that I get iTunes to perform better using an external
drive?
Yes. The internal drive inside your iMac has read/write speeds somewhere between 55-65MB/sec while your USB will max out at about 30MB/sec. This may not fix your problem but just as recommendation, next time purchase an external drive that has a Firewire connection. Firewire 400 maxes out at about 40MB/sec but overall performance is usually better than USB 2.0.
George

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I put all my music files on an external drive and imported them into iTunes. So far so good. The first time you run iTunes while the drive is disconnected - all your songs suddenly have that dreaded exclamation point next to them. Yes, while the drive is connected, I can still go to any song and double-click it to play; but the vast majority of songs stays "exclamated" and greyed-out. Shuffle ignores them. Even if I use some method to re-recognize all my songs, next time I open iTunes without first attaching the drive, it'll all go down the drain again.
Apple - this MacBook air is great but it only comes with 256 GB of built-in storage. I HAVE to use an external drive in order to have my music library. Why can't the MacBook recognize the drive, remember it, and know when it's connected and when it isn't?

If you mistakenly open iTunes with the drive disconnected, close iTunes, connect the drive, open iTunes, then visit iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and reset the media folder to the external drive.
Better yet is to move the iTunes library folder into the root of the external drive as <Device>/iTunes, then connect to it by holding down option as you start iTunes. Once iTunes "knows" your library is on the external drive it will complain of a missing library when you try to start with the drive disconnected. Cancel the warning, connect the drive, start iTunes.
For maximum portability you should set the media folder to <Device>/iTunes/iTunes Media and consolidate the media to that folder. You should then backup the drive to another for security.
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One thing that you can do in general to help overall performance is upgrade your RAM. The late 2006 iMacs should be able to take up to 3GB of RAM(some people install 4GB anyway) but even going up to 2GB should help your system a lot. Besides RAM is cheap these days: http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=288&type=Memory&TI=3454&shoup grds=Show+Upgrades
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I am using my 80gb ipod as external hard drive. I am concerned that I will kill off my battery life by having it plugged into the computer all day long via USB. I am assuming that the ipod is charging while it is plugged in. I know it stops charging when it fully charged but is that the case when it is plugged in and transferring data.
Will an ipod run without a battery? Is there a way to disable the charging function while it's plugged into the computer?
I know this is kind of a weird question but here is my exact scenario. I use my ipod as a mobile media player when my computer is off. When my computer is on I use it as an external hard drive that hold my itunes library.So for my itunes to run I need to have my ipod plugged in.
I guess my question is if there is a way to use my battery when I use the ipod to listen to music and then disable it to use it as an external? I want the best of both worlds. If anyone can answer or have any input that would be greatly appreciated.
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If something happens to your iPod and it is necessary to Restore it you are going to lose all of your music, videos, etc. Same thing if is is stolen, dropped, gets water on it, etc.
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Procedure populateCountryTrafficDetails(pWeekStartDate IN Date , pCountry IN d_geography.country_code%TYPE) is
startdate date;
AR_OrgId number(10);
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          d_retail_dest r, d_product p,
          CPS_ORDER_DETAILS o,
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          where
          l.date_key = f.call_date_key and
          g.geography_key = f.geography_key and
          r.dest_key = f.dest_key and
          p.product_key = f.product_key and
          --c.customer_key = f.customer_key and
          d.customer_key = f.customer_key and
          t.contract_key = f.contract_key and
          s.SUBSCRIBER_KEY = f.SUBSCRIBER_KEY and
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Type CallDateTabType is Table of country_traffic_details.CALL_DATE%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type CustomerNameTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Customer_name%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type CustomerNumberTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Customer_number%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type BcnTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Bcn%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type DestinationTypeTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.DESTINATION_TYPE%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type ProductCodeTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Product_Code%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type ProductTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Product%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type DurationTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Duration%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type DebamounteurTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.DEBAMOUNTEUR%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
Type SiteTabType is Table of Country_traffic_details.Site%Type index by BINARY_INTEGER;
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Customer_NameArr CustomerNameTabType;
CustomerNumberArr CustomerNumberTabType;
BCNArr BCNTabType;
DESTINATION_TYPEArr DESTINATIONTYPETabType;
PRODUCT_CODEArr PRODUCTCODETabType;
PRODUCTArr PRODUCTTabType;
DurationArr DurationTabType;
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SiteArr SiteTabType;
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     case (pCountry)
     when 'FR' then AR_OrgId := 81;
     when 'AT' then AR_OrgId := 125;
     when 'CH' then AR_OrgId := 126;
     when 'DE' then AR_OrgId := 127;
     when 'ES' then AR_OrgId := 123;
     when 'IT' then AR_OrgId := 122;
     when 'PT' then AR_OrgId := 124;
     when 'BE' then AR_OrgId := 132;
     when 'IE' then AR_OrgId := 128;
     when 'DK' then AR_OrgId := 133;
     when 'NL' then AR_OrgId := 129;
     when 'SE' then AR_OrgId := 130;
     when 'UK' then AR_OrgId := 131;
     else raise_application_error (-20003, 'No such Country Code Exists.');
     end case;
     Exe_Pos := 3;
dbms_output.put_line('3: '||to_char(sysdate, 'HH24:MI:SS'));
     populateOrderDetails(AR_OrgId);
dbms_output.put_line('4: '||to_char(sysdate, 'HH24:MI:SS'));
     Exe_Pos := 4;
     Open cTraffic;
     Loop
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     CallDateArr.delete;
FETCH cTraffic BULK COLLECT
          INTO CallDateArr, SiteArr, CountryArr, Customer_NameArr,CustomerNumberArr,
          BCNArr,DESTINATION_TYPEArr,PRODUCT_CODEArr, PRODUCTArr, DurationArr, DebamounteurArr LIMIT arraySize;
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                    insert into country_traffic_details
                    values(CallDateArr(i), CountryArr(i), Customer_NameArr(i),CustomerNumberArr(i),
                    BCNArr(i),DESTINATION_TYPEArr(i),PRODUCT_CODEArr(i), PRODUCTArr(i), DurationArr(i),
                    DebamounteurArr(i), SiteArr(i));
                    Exe_pos := 7;
dbms_output.put_line('7: '||to_char(sysdate, 'HH24:MI:SS'));
     EXIT WHEN ctraffic%NOTFOUND;
END LOOP;
     commit;
Exe_Pos := 8;
          commit;
dbms_output.put_line('8: '||to_char(sysdate, 'HH24:MI:SS'));
          lSql := 'CREATE INDEX COUNTRY_TRAFFIC_DETAILS_CUSTNO ON country_traffic_details (CUSTOMER_NUMBER)';
          execDDl(lSql);
          lSql := 'CREATE INDEX COUNTRY_TRAFFIC_DETAILS_BCN ON country_traffic_details (BCN)';
          execDDl(lSql);
          lSql := 'CREATE INDEX COUNTRY_TRAFFIC_DETAILS_PRODCD ON country_traffic_details (PRODUCT_CODE)';
          execDDl(lSql);
          lSql := 'CREATE INDEX COUNTRY_TRAFFIC_DETAILS_SITE ON country_traffic_details (SITE)';
          execDDl(lSql);
          lSql := 'CREATE INDEX COUNTRY_TRAFFIC_DETAILS_DESTYP ON country_traffic_details (DESTINATION_TYPE)';
          execDDl(lSql);
          Exe_Pos:= 9;
dbms_output.put_line('9: '||to_char(sysdate, 'HH24:MI:SS'));
Exception
     When Others then
     raise_application_error(-20003, 'Error in populateCountryTrafficDetails at Position: '||Exe_Pos||' The Error is '||SQLERRM);
End populateCountryTrafficDetails;
In the above procedure if i substitute the values with hard coded values i.e. AR_orgid = 123 & pcountry = 'Austria' then it runs faster.
Please let me know why it is so ?
Thanks in advance.

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