[Silencer]

I'm looking to buy an external Lacie HD for my iBook so that I can get all my music off my main HD. Does itunes access the library from the external HD as it would the internal HD, or will it copy the music from the external HD to the Internal?

Will iTunes go spastic if I open it without the External HD connected?

Any help will be really useful.


Thanks

[f1000]

You can set iTunes to access a library from a particular directory via Preferences: Advanced: iTunes Music folder location. iTunes won't duplicate the library to another directory.

If you attempt to play back a song from a library on an unmounted hard drive, the only thing that will happen is that an exclamation point will appear next to the song. These exclamation points are temporary and will disappear upon your exiting iTunes.

[Silencer]

Ahhh cool thanks for the quick reply.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by f1000:
You can set iTunes to access a library from a particular directory via Preferences: Advanced: iTunes Music folder location. iTunes won't duplicate the library to another directory.

If you attempt to play back a song from a library on an unmounted hard drive, the only thing that will happen is that an exclamation point will appear next to the song. These exclamation points are temporary and will disappear upon your exiting iTunes.

Well, sort of. You can have it access SONGS from an external device, and you'll get the exclamation point stuff.

If you actually tell it the whole LIBRARY is on another device (which means it will store its data files there) and the library isn't present, it goes ape sh*t. Or, at least, when I did this in iTunes 3 it completely locked up, and I was hozered. I haven't tried that again lately, but I'd recommend just adding songs from a more disk, and letting iTunes keep its files on the local HD. Make sure you don't have "let iTunes move your files" or whatever equivalent option that is selected, or it will copy all files to the local HD.

[f1000]

The "iTunes 4 Music Library" file will remain in the User directory Music: iTunes even if you change the location of the "iTunes Music" folder via Preferences. I don't think iTunes provides an option to move this file.

On a side note, if during startup iTunes can't find the "iTunes Music" folder, the application will reset the folder's location to the default (which means you need to set it back). I don�t know how to prevent iTunes from doing this.

[Silencer]

Hmm damn, I may as well just wait for a ipod revision, hopefully more storage and then just keep all my music on my ipod and delete the music from my hard drive when its been copied.

I did buy a imac to serve as a jukebox, which works well, but now when i rip a cd i get an annoying hiss and crackles in the loud sections of the song, this is using apple loss-less.

[f1000]

You can store your audio files anywhere as long as you tell iTunes where to find them. The items in your library can be stored on an internal or external hard disk, on removable media, or even on a network. The iTunes Music Library file on the other hand, which keeps track of the songs you have, must remain in the iTunes Music folder in your Music folder. This information comes straight from the iTunes help files.

Don't confuse the iTunes Music folder, which contains the audio files, with the iTunes Music Library file, which contains the playlists and song information; they are two different things.

I store all of my AIFF files in an iTunes Music folder on an external Firewire drive and I've never had iTunes 3 or 4 crash if I disconnect this drive.

[-Q-]

What f1000 said. I've had no problem storing the music files on an external Firewire drive. If I happen to open iTunes w/out mounting the drive, I just get a dialog telling me the song(s) can't be found. The problem is corrected as soon as I turn on the FW disk. And iTunes doesn't even need to be restarted.

[OreoCookie]

Yes, it works, I have exactly this setup. Works fine, but make sure, you have you're hd connected when iTunes is open.

[Freeflyer]

I'll add a little that no-one else mentioned.

I have itunes on an external drive, and it works just fine. If you don't have the drive connected you'll see all your tunes/playlists but can't play them. If you import a new cd without the drive connected, it will still import the tracks, but put them in a local itunes music folder. When you reconnect your hard drive, all you have to do is just copy them over to your main music folder on the external drive. It sorts/indexes automagically.

This worked well for me with a powerbook. I had my music library (50Gb) on an external drive. If I was out at a friends and wanted to rip a disc, I could do that without needing the extra drive, and just sort when I got home (yes, I know, it's a copyright violation, but 99.8% of that 50Gb is legally bought by me, before anyone starts)

J.

[Silencer]

Ahh well if people have this kind of setup running and working, then i think i'll pick myself an external drive until the new ipods come out. Thanks for all the replies!