iTunes from external drive, how to update ipod

Hi everyone,

I recently moved to the UK and had to bring my files on a smartdisk portable hard drive, since they were on an imac which I couldn't bring with me. I'm now working with a macbook pro.

I have my itunes library on the smartdisk, and basically I want to keep it there, yet I want iTunes to use it if the drive is plugged in. I'm aware of changing the location of itunes adv pref. But this seems to work reverse, when you want to move from internal to external. How do you rig it with a new machine, when the itunes library is already on external?

My next question, if you can make this work, how do you update your ipod since there is only one firewire 400 port in the macbook pro? The smartdisk and ipod both need one. Is it possible? The smartdisk has two firewire slots by I'm pretty sure they're both outputs. Doesn't seem right to plug the ipod into the smartdisk.

Any ideas?

Nic

Ah... well if your goal is to keep your music on the external drives, then try this:
Don't have the "official" iTunes library folder on the external drive (leave it as the default one under your user folder), but do disable the option to automatically copy music to the iTunes Music folder. Then just drag and drop all your music into the iTunes window and VOILA! Music stays on the external drive and iTunes knows to find them there.

As for syncing the iPod... have you TRIED plugging it into the Smartdisk's firewire slots? They are there for the purpose of daisy-chaining devices when only one slot is available on the computer. What does the manual for the drive say they are for?

thanks

Hi there,

Thanks for your advice. Disabling "copy to folder" is exactly what I was looking for, great tip.

As far as updating ipod, I don't have the manual with me, but the product specs on the smart disk web site say to use the optional power plug for the drive, when daisy chaining devices. I don't have the plug, although I could get one. Do you reckon it's necessary, even with just an ipod?

Thanks again,

Nic

arrow!head said:

Hi there,

Thanks for your advice. Disabling "copy to folder" is exactly what I was looking for, great tip.

As far as updating ipod, I don't have the manual with me, but the product specs on the smart disk web site say to use the optional power plug for the drive, when daisy chaining devices. I don't have the plug, although I could get one. Do you reckon it's necessary, even with just an ipod?

Thanks again,

Nic

Click to expand...

Well the reason it recommends using the optional power plug is to avoid "losing juice" by having too many power-sucking devices daisy-chained together. The firewire port can only provide so much power. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to try it without the optional power plug. Worst that can happen is that there simply won't be enough power via the firewire port to "spread around" and the devices won't work, or perhaps just work sluggishly. I highly doubt anything would break, but NO guarantees on it.

Well, I plugged the smartdisk into the mac, then the ipod into the smartdisk, with everything drawing power only from the mac, and there seemed to be no problems. itunes recognized the ipod right away and the icon showed up normally on the desktop. Now, obviously running frequent updates this way might strain the the smartdisk, but for intermittent updates it looks like it will be fine.

Thanks again for your help!

There is another option that I use. Especially if some of your music is on the external and some on the hard disk and you want All your music on the external drive.

As the previous posters say - disable the copy to my folder option. Bring all your music into itunes.

Once it is all there - and if you want to keep all your music on the hard disk, go to itunes > advanced > consolidate library

Choose a new location for the itunes library - on your external for example.
(make sure you have enough room)

This will create a new iTunes library containing all the itunes tracks on your external. Switch the copy songs to library back on - from now on ALL your music will be on the external - but non on the Macbooks drive.

Thanks everyone for your help with this issue.

Louishen, that was exactly the solution I was looking for and it worked nicely. Now I know.

Nic