I have an Imac (which keeps my photos and music), a 500gig external drive (which keeps my movies) and a 1TB external drive (which backs up the aforementioned internal/external drive). The movie 500gig drive is running out of space. Itunes is pointed to this drive for movies. I am looking for advice on how to transition to a new drive without duplicating much work. Is it as simple as buying a new 1TB drive, copying movies from 500gig to new drive and then merely deleting movies in Itunes and re-importing them from the new drive? Anything else to consider? Time Capsule? I stream all my movies via Cat 5 ethernet. Thanks.
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Hard drive running out of room question
- Thread starter uva25
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uva25 said:
That's how I would do it. Besides, there's nothing wrong with starting up a fresh new clean library in iTunes every now and then. Sounds like an opportunity to spring clean.
It is not necessary to move anything off your existing 500GB drive, or delete anything from the iTunes library. You don't even have to change any iTunes prefs, unless you want to. Simply buy a new drive and start storing stuff on it. You can add items to your iTunes library from the new external by holding down the Apple+Option keys while dragging and dropping.
Regards,
Michael
Regards,
Michael
Or just copy all of your media files from the old drive to the new one, then name the new drive exactly the same as the old drive. iTunes should work just fine, so long as the path to the files remains the same.
I didn't think of that . Thanks. I have to think if I have enough firewire ports available. I actually have a spare 500 gig drive that I can use.
I don't think they even have to be named the same. When I was moving my movies from HD to HD, the .xml file that keeps track of all of them seemed to know exactly where it went. So I didn't have to do anything after I moved them to a larger HD.
Make sure it's USB 2.0.
And as long as iTunes is running if/when you drag files to new locations, it updates its own xml file/database so it knows to where you moved the files.
What if I "copy" the files? I'm not sure I ever "moved" files. I usually just drag the file to the new drive and it creates a copy.
Couldn't you just concatenate the new drive with the existing 500 GB one? So now you have 1.5 TB?
From Disk Utility Help Guide:
About concatenated RAID sets
You can create a single, large volume from several smaller disks by creating a concatenated RAID set, which is also called Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) or spanning. The concatenated RAID set acts as one large volume with the combined capacity of all the smaller disks. You can increase the size of a concatenated RAID set after it's been created by dragging more disks to it using Disk Utility.
A concatenated RAID set is helpful if you have a file, such as a database, that's larger than any of your disks. Its also useful if you need to create a mirrored or striped RAID set with one large disk and two smaller disks.
If all the disks in the RAID set are about the same size, consider using a striped RAID set. A striped RAID set lets you access your data quicker.
Be sure to back up your data frequently. If any one of the drives is damaged, you will lose the data thats on all the drives.
From Disk Utility Help Guide:
About concatenated RAID sets
You can create a single, large volume from several smaller disks by creating a concatenated RAID set, which is also called Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) or spanning. The concatenated RAID set acts as one large volume with the combined capacity of all the smaller disks. You can increase the size of a concatenated RAID set after it's been created by dragging more disks to it using Disk Utility.
A concatenated RAID set is helpful if you have a file, such as a database, that's larger than any of your disks. Its also useful if you need to create a mirrored or striped RAID set with one large disk and two smaller disks.
If all the disks in the RAID set are about the same size, consider using a striped RAID set. A striped RAID set lets you access your data quicker.
Be sure to back up your data frequently. If any one of the drives is damaged, you will lose the data thats on all the drives.
If you drag-n-drop with the command key (I think -- check "Help" in Finder and look for "moving files") held down, it "moves" the file.
Nah, speed shouldn't be an issue with that hub. It is a dual FireWire/USB hub that doesn't require an external power supply.
Regards,
Michael
With RAID, if one drive fails, you lose all of your files. With two separate drives, you only lose those on the drive that fails. Too risky, if you ask me.
