What to Do With a Large (at least to me) Media Library

[Stevi]

I have far more music and video content that I ever thought. I just bought a new MacBook (2020 M1) with a 2 TB drive thinking I could store it all on the internal drive and well that just isn't looking feasible for the longterm.

So my video library is almost 1tb and my audio library is getting close to 600gb.

So here are my questions to those who know more than I do:

Can I run my music library on one drive and video library on another? or

Can I run some music or video on an external SSD Drive and some on the internal drive or does each library have to be fully on the same drive (ie all music on the internal drive and all video on an external or visa-versa)? (I was thinking of keeping my favourite videos on the internal drive and store the rest on an external drive.

This is of course assuming I stick with the Music and TV Apps so alternatively are there other apps that manage media libraries that will also work with Apple TV 3 and 4 and support multiple sources?

Thanks in advance,

Stevi

 

[kevinws]

You can look into Plex. I have it running on a PC I salvaged. Threw ubuntu server on it the Plex media server and now its sitting in a basement attached to my router. You can run Plex on just about anything.

Meet your TV concierge.

Enjoy all of your entertainment, no matter where it lives, plus 50,000+ free titles from us.

www.plex.tv

 

[Partron22]

An 8TB spinner is around $150 these days. you can keep all your music and videos on one. USB3 speed is good enough for streaming, even through a hub.

 

[pmiles]

An 8TB spinner is around $150 these days. you can keep all your music and videos on one. USB3 speed is good enough for streaming, even through a hub.

I have a 4TB Western Digital Black with all my media files on it. Standard 7200RPM drive. So long as the drive doesn't go belly up on you, it should be all you need.

Adding one other thing... just why are you archiving so much stuff? 1TB is measely in retrospect, but now is a good time to take inventory of your needs. A lot of people save everything because they can... but in hindsight come to find that they rarely, if ever listen to or watch most of it. Eventually you will find that the formats you have saved stuff under will no longer be relevant, and if you don't have the original source, it's often a poor candidate for transcoding to something more relevant later.

This is why streaming services are growing exponentially... they are essentially going to become everyone's source for content because it will always be available in a relevant format (if feasible) and you don't have to find space to store all the stufff.

Think of it like going from LPs to digital music... most people can't fathom why anyone would have a mountain of LPs stored somewhere when they can just access it online via a streaming service. Same for TV shows and the like.

Food for thought.

*Saying this looking at a 4TB drive of stuff that I typically peruse via a streaming service instead of my own files these days*

 

[Wando64]

:

Can I run my music library on one drive and video library on another? or

Can I run some music or video on an external SSD Drive and some on the internal drive or does each library have to be fully on the same drive (ie all music on the internal drive and all video on an external or visa-versa)? (I was thinking of keeping my favourite videos on the internal drive and store the rest on an external drive.

This is of course assuming I stick with the Music and TV Apps so alternatively are there other apps that manage media libraries that will also work with Apple TV 3 and 4 and support multiple sources?

Yes you can do both.
You will still have one single library located on your MacBook, but instead of having the data contained within the library, you can chose to have the library pointing to files in whichever location you chose to have them.
To achieve this you will need to un-tick the option to “copy files to media folder when adding to library” under Preferences/Files, in the Music App.
After doing this, you should place all your files wherever you want them and then add them to a new library from there.
They will appear as if they are in the library, but the data files will remain in the original location, wherever that happens to be.
I am pretty sure the TV app shares the same library and settings, but to be sure you might want to go into the same preference panel from the TV app and ensure the same settings are applied.

 

[Stephen.R]

Can I run my music library on one drive and video library on another? or

Yes. There are two ways to store your external Music and TV libraries on an external drive.

You can do what Apple detail in https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/music/mus69248042d/mac (and similar steps for TV.app) - which is what @Wando64 is talking about.


What I do (and would recommend for yourself) is to have the entire library, including the "metadata" files on the external drive. This is really easy to do.

Close Music.app. Go to your Home folder, look in the Music folder, and you should see another folder called Music, and in it, will be a file called "Music Library" and a directory called "Media". Move the entire second-level "Music" directory to whatever external drive you want to put it on.

Once it's completely finished moving the files, double click the "Music Library" file, and it will open Music.app. Go to Preferences and click the Files tab, confirm that the "Music Media folder location" is a subdirectory of whatever external drive you moved that "Music" folder to, so e.g. if you put the "Music" folder on a volume called "Foo", it should say "/Foo/Music/Media".

Now you essentially repeat the same steps for the TV library. Close TV.app, go to your Home folder, then Movies, look for a directory called TV, with a "TV Library" file and "Media" directory inside. Move the entire "TV" directory to the new location you want. When it's finished, double click the "TV Library" file, and confirm the correct location in Preferences > Files.



Now. Why do all this, rather than what Apple suggests?

I used to do what they suggest, back when it was iTunes. The problem becomes, if for some reason you start one of the programs without that external drive attached, the library loads fine, but it will suddenly realise none of the files are accessible, and marks them as broken. In the iTunes days, fixing "broken" file references like that was a tedious task - you'd essentially have to Get Info on every track that was considered 'broken', once the disk was re-connected, or it would never try to play that content.

If you do it the way I described, and you either deliberately or accidentally (i.e. hitting the media keys on a keyboard might launch Music.app) open Music.app or TV.app without the drive attached, it will tell you it can't find the Library, and ask if you want to choose one, create one, or quit. No broken track references to worry about.

I am pretty sure the TV app shares the same library and settings

They are not shared. The two apps maintain separate libraries, and have separate preferences.

 

[MarkC426]

This is why streaming services are growing exponentially... they are essentially going to become everyone's source for content because it will always be available in a relevant format (if feasible) and you don't have to find space to store all the stufff.

Think of it like going from LPs to digital music... most people can't fathom why anyone would have a mountain of LPs stored somewhere when they can just access it online via a streaming service. Same for TV shows and the like.

Sorry but I completely disagree..... 😬
I don't touch streaming services with a barge-pole, rental models are money pits.

Content on streaming services can be edited/censored/removed anytime they want.

All my content, whether VHS/Laserdisc/DVD/HDDVD/Blu-ray/iTunes is accessible whenever I want.
I have hundreds of records which have never been available digitally.

 

[theSeb]

Yes. There are two ways to store your external Music and TV libraries on an external drive.

You can do what Apple detail in https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/music/mus69248042d/mac (and similar steps for TV.app) - which is what @Wando64 is talking about.


What I do (and would recommend for yourself) is to have the entire library, including the "metadata" files on the external drive. This is really easy to do.

Close Music.app. Go to your Home folder, look in the Music folder, and you should see another folder called Music, and in it, will be a file called "Music Library" and a directory called "Media". Move the entire second-level "Music" directory to whatever external drive you want to put it on.

Once it's completely finished moving the files, double click the "Music Library" file, and it will open Music.app. Go to Preferences and click the Files tab, confirm that the "Music Media folder location" is a subdirectory of whatever external drive you moved that "Music" folder to, so e.g. if you put the "Music" folder on a volume called "Foo", it should say "/Foo/Music/Media".

Now you essentially repeat the same steps for the TV library. Close TV.app, go to your Home folder, then Movies, look for a directory called TV, with a "TV Library" file and "Media" directory inside. Move the entire "TV" directory to the new location you want. When it's finished, double click the "TV Library" file, and confirm the correct location in Preferences > Files.



Now. Why do all this, rather than what Apple suggests?

I used to do what they suggest, back when it was iTunes. The problem becomes, if for some reason you start one of the programs without that external drive attached, the library loads fine, but it will suddenly realise none of the files are accessible, and marks them as broken. In the iTunes days, fixing "broken" file references like that was a tedious task - you'd essentially have to Get Info on every track that was considered 'broken', once the disk was re-connected, or it would never try to play that content.

If you do it the way I described, and you either deliberately or accidentally (i.e. hitting the media keys on a keyboard might launch Music.app) open Music.app or TV.app without the drive attached, it will tell you it can't find the Library, and ask if you want to choose one, create one, or quit. No broken track references to worry about.



They are not shared. The two apps maintain separate libraries, and have separate preferences.

I just wanted to add that if you do open Music by mistake with the external drive disconnected and accidentally create a new one, then the easy way to repoint your Music app to your external drive is to quit the app, reconnect the hard drive and hold option when you click on Music. It will give you the dialog again to choose. You can then browse to your external drive library file.

I keep my media library on an external 2.5" 4 TB Seagate drive. It works well and does not require a separate power source.

 

[sracer]

Sorry but I completely disagree..... 😬
I don't touch streaming services with a barge-pole, rental models are money pits.

Content on streaming services can be edited/censored/removed anytime they want.

All my content, whether VHS/Laserdisc/DVD/HDDVD/Blu-ray/iTunes is accessible whenever I want.
I have hundreds of records which have never been available digitally.

I'm in wholehearted agreement.

I've just completed digitizing all of my DVD movie and TV series discs. (over 1000 movies, 4500 TV episodes) All cataloged and organized on an 8TB drive that is served up via a Plex server. (I have a second 8TB drive that is a mirror backup of that... plan on getting a 3rd for an off-site backup)

The discs are stored in compact binders.

I've also ripped all of my music CDs. Again, served up by Plex, and stored on the same drive. (with discs in the same binders)

I'm currently scanning my library of books (the CZUR Shine Ultra makes it very quick and easy).

I have about 200 audio cassettes and 200 vinyl LPs, most if which aren't available on any other format or digitally, that will be digitized too.

My ultimate goal is to have all of my libraries in highly mobile digital format, store the physical media in a storage unit (compact form won't require a large storage unit) rather than taking up space in a downsized home when I retire.