MBA and external storing of iTunes library

[gregishere]

I recently got my first macbook with the 128 13" MBA and am just in love with it. I have a large Lenovo IdeaPad that I intended to maintain as my primary laptop, but I have trouble going back to it after using this sleek all the time.

I have a large iTunes library that includes: 8 gigs of music, tons of apps, and a large amount of gigs of TV shows and digital copies that I use for my iPhone and iPad. I want my MBA to be my primary computer for iTunes syncing, but the hard-drive isn't big enough and I wouldn't want to use it all on my library anyway. So I wanted to maintain my iTunes library on my 500GB external drive and then just plug that in when I want to use iTunes.

I read guides from Apple.com on how to do this, and I've consolidated files and copied everything to the external drive, but when I try to choose a library when I open iTunes it won't let me select anything (or if I select it and nothing appears in my library in the iTunes program).

Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!!

 

[ttate90303]

Not sure which guide you followed, but if you hold the Option key you can then point your iTunes Library to the location on the external drive. Let us know if you performed that step.

 

[gregishere]

Not sure which guide you followed, but if you hold the Option key you can then point your iTunes Library to the location on the external drive. Let us know if you performed that step.

Yep, first I tried to point it to the folder that held all of my iTunes media and when it wouldn't let me pick a normal folder I tried to select the file "iTunes Library.itl" and it wouldn't let me.

 

[Buckeyes1995]

Yep, first I tried to point it to the folder that held all of my iTunes media and when it wouldn't let me pick a normal folder I tried to select the file "iTunes Library.itl" and it wouldn't let me.

I store my itunes library on my Thecus NAS.. works fine.. just had to select the .itl file.. first time I did it, it didnt work right.. but second time it worked fine.

I'm seriously contemplating moving it off the NAS... Itunes is very very sluggish over my NAS.

 

[GGJstudios]

• Make sure you have moved your iTunes library file, and not just your music files, to your external drive.
• Make sure you have your iTunes Media folder location pointed to the proper place on the external drive.
• Make sure you have these two checkboxes UNchecked:
• Make sure you have the external drive mounted before you launch iTunes.

​

 

[gregishere]

• Make sure you have moved your iTunes library file, and not just your music files, to your external drive.
• Make sure you have your iTunes Media folder location pointed to the proper place on the external drive.
• Make sure you have these two checkboxes UNchecked:
• Make sure you have the external drive mounted before you launch iTunes.

View attachment 275020​

Unchecked you say? That is different than how I've been doing it. I'll give it a whirl.

 

[GGJstudios]

Unchecked you say? That is different than how I've been doing it. I'll give it a whirl.

Yes, when you uncheck those, it means you manage your music files and folders, rather than letting iTunes do it.

 

[ZipZap]

I store my itunes library on my Thecus NAS.. works fine.. just had to select the .itl file.. first time I did it, it didnt work right.. but second time it worked fine.

I'm seriously contemplating moving it off the NAS... Itunes is very very sluggish over my NAS.

I store my iTunes on an LG NAS. When I used a laptop and WIFI to manage my itunes it was slowwwww 802.11g. I upgraded to 802.11n and it got better but was still slow. The second I connected that PC to the LAN no more speed issues (obviosuly at 1gigbit).

I would avoid WIFI and get a portable drive to house your itunes media library. Use an NAS as a place to back up the portable drive.

BTW...the LG NAS has a timemachine service and I back up to it with no issues.

 

[ttate90303]

I store my iTunes on an LG NAS. When I used a laptop and WIFI to manage my itunes it was slowwwww 802.11g. I upgraded to 802.11n and it got better but was still slow. The second I connected that PC to the LAN no more speed issues (obviosuly at 1gigbit).

I would avoid WIFI and get a portable drive to house your itunes media library. Use an NAS as a place to back up the portable drive.

BTW...the LG NAS has a timemachine service and I back up to it with no issues.

I had similar issues with running iTunes on a NAS even with GigE. Put it on an external 2TB drive via FW800 and things are much better. I use the NAS as backup (Netgear ReadyNAS DUO).