Running out of space

[myuserid08]

I have an iMac, Apple TV and now a Time Capsule.

The iMac is running out of space (iTunes library) and so is the Apple TV.

Whats the best way to resolve this, buy a new hard drive for the iMac or move the iTunes library over to the TC, other ?

I tried moving the library over to the TC but I faced several problems, main one being iTunes reverting back to the local iTunes library!

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[flatfoot]

I have an iMac, Apple TV and now a Time Capsule.

The iMac is running out of space (iTunes library) and so is the Apple TV.

Whats the best way to resolve this, buy a new hard drive for the iMac or move the iTunes library over to the TC, other ?

I tried moving the library over to the TC but I faced several problems, main one being iTunes reverting back to the local iTunes library!

Any suggestions?

Thanks

If your iMac is already out of warranty, I'd most definitely throw in a 2TB drive (maybe even if it is still under warranty...). That's fairly easy (-> ifixit.com). This will also give you a speed gain, since newer HDDs are faster than that built into your iMac and mechanical drives become slower the fuller they are. While you're at it and if your iMac has a SATA optical drive, you could also take that out and put in another 2TB drive using an OptiBay adaptor. RAID0 the two drives and you have a screaming fast 4TB drive.
But as always with RAID0, make sure you always have a proper backup of your data, because if one of the two drives fails, all data is lost.

EDIT: Ah, sorry, OptiBay only seems to work for 2.5" drives... But you could throw an SSD in instead of the optical drive and use it as your boot drive!

 

[rayward]

I have an iMac, Apple TV and now a Time Capsule.

The iMac is running out of space (iTunes library) and so is the Apple TV.

Whats the best way to resolve this, buy a new hard drive for the iMac or move the iTunes library over to the TC, other ?

I tried moving the library over to the TC but I faced several problems, main one being iTunes reverting back to the local iTunes library!

Any suggestions?

Thanks

I have a 2TB NAS for my iTunes library. It slows down access times even though it's connected by ethernet, but I only really notice that when I'm dropping a new HD movie into iTunes.

Regarding your library location default problem, I had the same thing. I had iTunes set to auto-open on boot, because it needs to be always open for Apple TV access. The problem was, iTunes would open before the NAS was re-mounted, fail to find it, and default back to the local location.

The "fix" was to open iTunes manually after a reboot, but only after the NAS has mounted. If I do that, there's no problem. It's an extra step, but not a bother as I'm sitting there when the Mac reboots anyway.

 

[roidy]

Regarding your library location default problem, I had the same thing. I had iTunes set to auto-open on boot, because it needs to be always open for Apple TV access. The problem was, iTunes would open before the NAS was re-mounted, fail to find it, and default back to the local location.

The "fix" was to open iTunes manually after a reboot, but only after the NAS has mounted. If I do that, there's no problem. It's an extra step, but not a bother as I'm sitting there when the Mac reboots anyway.

Ok I know nothing about Mac's of OSX so ignore me if I'm talking rubbish here, but couldn't you create an alias for your NAS on your mac's hard drive and then point iTunes to that. That way even if your NAS isn't mounted after boot iTunes would still see the alias and think the library was available. Just don't try to access it until the NAS is mounted.

 

[mstrze]

I have an external 1.5TB USB 2.0 drive that has my iTunes library on it and I have had absolutely no issues. Been doing it this way for nearly a year now. I also have an AppleTV, Airport Extreme..no TC, but I do use and external as a TM drive attached to my computer.

May I ask did you allow iTunes to transfer your library to the new location, or did you pull everything over yourself? If the answer is the latter, you are almost always going to have issues.

Here is the proper way to do it...basically 'Keep your media folder organized', choose a new library folder/destination, then let iTunes consolidate all your items for you: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449?viewlocale=en_US

And DO NOT store your library on TC...what happens if the TC drive crashes? You still have your main files on your HDD, but not your iTunes library files. They are gone for good. The ideal situation is hosting on an external and allow TC to back that up as well.

 

[rayward]

Ok I know nothing about Mac's of OSX so ignore me if I'm talking rubbish here, but couldn't you create an alias for your NAS on your mac's hard drive and then point iTunes to that. That way even if your NAS isn't mounted after boot iTunes would still see the alias and think the library was available. Just don't try to access it until the NAS is mounted.

I am less OSX-savvy than you, so I have no idea if this will work, or even how to do it. I plan to upgrade to a new iMac shortly, and that will have a 2TB HDD inside on which I'll keep my iTunes library, and then use Time Machine to back it up to the NAS. That way, the mounting lag problem goes away.

 

[rayward]

I have an external 1.5TB USB 2.0 drive that has my iTunes library on it and I have had absolutely no issues. Been doing it this way for nearly a year now. I also have an AppleTV, Airport Extreme..no TC, but I do use and external as a TM drive attached to my computer.

May I ask did you allow iTunes to transfer your library to the new location, or did you pull everything over yourself? If the answer is the latter, you are almost always going to have issues.

Here is the proper way to do it...basically 'Keep your media folder organized', choose a new library folder/destination, then let iTunes consolidate all your items for you: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449?viewlocale=en_US

And DO NOT store your library on TC...what happens if the TC drive crashes? You still have your main files on your HDD, but not your iTunes library files. They are gone for good. The ideal situation is hosting on an external and allow TC to back that up as well.

FTR, I used the consolidate feature as you describe, but if the NAS isn't there, iTunes "runs home to Mummy" looking for the library. When that happens, I change the library location in preferences back to the NAS location, and let iTunes re-consolidate my library (which doesn't take long as there's no content to move around).

 

[mstrze]

I guess since my external is always connected by USB cable, it never has any issues as your NAS connected via ethernet might?

Meaning that even if my drive is 'sleeping', it is still connected and iTunes will just wake it up to get the necessary files.

Is this something that can't be done via NAS/ethernet? If not, you might want to try just a run-of-the-mill USB or FW external for your expanding needs.

 

[rayward]

I guess since my external is always connected by USB cable, it never has any issues as your NAS connected via ethernet might?

Meaning that even if my drive is 'sleeping', it is still connected and iTunes will just wake it up to get the necessary files.

Is this something that can't be done via NAS/ethernet? If not, you might want to try just a run-of-the-mill USB or FW external for your expanding needs.

Yep, the NAS is connected to the router and, while it's always on, if the Mac is rebooted, it has to remount the NAS. I could connect the drive directly to the Mac, and that would likely avoid the problem, but it's not much bother just to check that it's there before re-opening iTunes and I like having it tucked away.

 

[tommylotto]

You need to get two external hard drives. One to hold your video library, and one to hold your video library again.

Leave your internal iMac hard drive for system, applications, home folder, etc.

Use your Time Capsule as intended to back up you internal iMac hard drive.

Then get a 1 or 2 TB Firewire 800 external hard drive for your video library. Remember to go into iTunes preferences and uncheck: "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library"

Then get a second external hard drive that is the same capacity as the first. This one can be USB as speed in not as necessary. Get a program (there are tons of them) that will enable you to sync your two external hard drives and set them up to automatically sync one a week.

Then you are set. As you add new movies to your external hard drive they will be automatically back up every week. You can sync the two drives more often, but there are perils in doing that too.