Hi All,

I am running into a slight problem, my iTunes Library is growing too fast and I am running out of storage!

Along with my Australian iTunes account that I purchase Music from I have a US account that I can purchase TV shows and Movies and well any other content not available on the Australian Store.

My library has now expanded to just under 100GB, 80% of it being downloads from the Store. I know I can back them up to DVD but I still want to be able to play them when I want on my computer and through the AppleTV when it finally ships (March 20 hopefully). I have an iMac G5 with 400GB hard drive.

If I buy an external hard drive, can I export the files on there and access them directly on my computer and more importantly will AppleTV be able to pick up the files from an external source. I know that AppleTV is not available yet, so I might not get that answer till release.

Also if I export the files to an external hard drive will it screw up any authorisations on my files, i.e. the authorised computer to play the files.

So hoping you might be able to shed some light on it for me as I only have around 60GB left on my disk.

Thanks,

Adam.

You could do a half and half possibly - run all your non-authorisation music to dvd's and then delete them from the main library.
Install your external HD and change the preferences so that it becomes the library and then install your dvd's to that library.
itunes will still see and play the songs from the original folder as well as the new library.
I could be wrong but I do like long work arounds like this. It makes one feel busy.
+ you've got the bonus of back-ups on dvd! Always worthwhile.
No backups means no music if your HD dies anyway.

Yes. There are multiple ways to do this, aliases, point iTunes to your new library location.

AppleTV should be able to pick them up if iTunes can pick them up.

If you copy your library directly across, you should have no problems with authorisation.

Having said all that, I recommend you have at least 1 backup of all of your music purchases. All it takes is one drive failure to lose it all.

While I'm also interested in hearing how you go about this, both from a music and video library perspective, one thing keeps gnawing at me -

80 per cent of your 100GB library is bought off iTS? You mean you've spent around $15,000 on iTS?

Ah, so we've finally found that buyer that Steve mentioned in the keynote.

if you use hold down the option key when you start iTS you can choose your library...
so if you just move your whole library to the ext. then point itunes in that direction.. everything should be fine.
maccast has done some recent podcasts on itunes library mgmt.. might be worth listening too.. (apparently Adam is going to do one just on library mgmt in the not to distant future).

OziMac... not necessarily... if he has bought movies.. 1-2gb a shot and tv shows running .5gb it wont take that long or that much money to fill 100GB...
20 movies 30gb $300 (aud)
40 tv shows 20gb $100

half 100gb gone already and only $400 down....

how does one make it so that the music is on the external hdd, but itunes still finds it?

After you've changed to the location of the ext HD in itunes preferences every time you turn on itunes you'd start up the ext HD before opening itunes.
If it starts up without the HD turned on nothing will play and it would probably set up a default library back in the original location.
Itunes will automatically find the library provided the Hd is turned ON.

read my above post or silvers

Granted, but he seems to be talking about music (at least from iTS AU). Regardless, it's a lot of money, and I'm just curous.

I have my iTunes lib 160gig on a firewire drive. USB drives work fine, but firewire is better. If I dont have my drive on iTunes saves to the default drive. The real issue now for me is what would be the best solution to back up such a large drive ?

thanks.. im blind, and missed the option in the pref panel..

Put it this way...Ugly Betty, Prison Break, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Hereos, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order, Survivor Cook Islands, Survivor Fiji, Punk'd, Weeds, Reno 911! seasons and over 15 movies have all been purchased legally via the iTunes Store in the US.

So Yes I am running out of room, and far from spending $15k, I would keep it under $800-$1200 on all purchases including music over a year and a half...if even that.

Thanks for all your replies, tomorrow I'm going to back up everything to DVD, and look for an external hard disk, was thinking one of the Maxtor ones...they seem to get good write ups.

Any suggestions on what to look for in an external disk or even better where to find the cheapest price?

Thanks again,

Adam.

itunes 7 has made it pretty easy to spread your library across multiple disks.
if you select your external hard drive as you main library, and import, it'll stick all your music to the external. then you can change your prefs to another location, and everything from that point on will be imported to the new location. you can just keep selecting new locations, and itunes will remember them all. its pretty good, i've got all my music on an external, and all my podcasts on my lappy.

To pick up on this older but useful thread, can I spread an iTunes library across network-mounted disks? (I generally do afp mounts through a ssh tunnel.) How will iTunes behave if a network disk is temporarily missing?