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a specific question about itunes and making room in my computer

topic posted Sat, September 1, 2007 - 9:10 AM by  bigston
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my 80 gb drive is nearly full and i need to make more room to run pro tools. ive moved what i can into the external drive and still need more room. my itunes music is taking up 37 gb of space so heres my question.



is there a way to move all my itunes music to the hard drive and have itunes locate them on its own? i have a few thousand tracks and i dont want to have to manually find them through itunes when i want to listen to them........ im hoping i can move them all to the external and somehow let itunes know to automatically search for them.



one more question:



is it safe to move applications to the external? the ones i use in the studio only id like to have not taking up space in my laptop while im on the road. thanks for your time
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bigston
offline bigston
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  • Pink
    Pink
    offline 59

    Re: a specific question about itunes and making room in my computer

    Sun, September 2, 2007 - 10:29 AM
    Here is what I would do.

    1, buy a drive dedicated to iTunes music.

    2. Grab the itunes music folder :
    Users/(your username)/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
    and copy it to the drive.

    3. Delete or remove from the :
    Users/(your username)/Music/iTunes/
    folder the iTunes Library and iTunes Library.xml files

    4. Note I rename this folder on the external hard drive with all my music on it something else than iTunes Music cause I am like that and it keeps things from getting confusing. I call mine Phatt

    5. Open iTunes. It should be empty.

    6. Tell iTunes where the music folder is - Preferences>Advanced/General/iTunes Music folder location/Change

    7. Uncheck the "Movie files to iTunes folder when adding to library "checkbox.

    8. Close preferences.

    9. Drag the iTunes Music folder (or whatever you called it) from the external drive and drop it on to iTunes.

    10. Time for a coffee or a beer or an ice tea (it's hot today in LA!)

    11. When it is done, all your songs will show up in iTunes and they will be proberly linked to the external drive.

    12. Go back into preferences and recheck the "Movie files to iTunes folder when adding to library "

    13. Enjoy


    Things to watch out for:

    -You might loose some Artwork and will have to have iTunes search for it again. Do that before you go to bed.

    -if you launch iTunes without that drive connected then iTunes will add music files BACK TO THE iTunes folder on your local drive. You can quit iTunes, mount the external music drive, and then select Consolidate Library from the Advanced menu. This will copy the songs to your external drive. However, it will not delete the files from your local drive. You have to do that manually.

    ONE THING YOU MUST DO -
    MAKE A BACK-UP OF YOUR MUSIC DRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    My understanding is that Pro Tools is wanky and wants clear, consecutive sectors on the hard drive. So even removing the music files might not help. You might have to defrag. Make sure to back up before you defrag.

    Once you have committed to the digital life style, maintenance becomes an issue. It's not so automatic anymore.


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