02-17-2008, 12:26 PM

I just picked up a WD portable Hard Drive and put all of my photos and music on it from my iMac. Can I plug it into my MacbookPro and access the music/photos without having it import on my computer's hard drive? I would like to set it up as a 'traveling' hard drive between computers.

How do I do this?

02-17-2008, 12:35 PM

If you still have all the music on your imac the best way to move it to the external is:

To copy your itunes library to the external drive choose consolidate library from the Advanced Menu. This will copy all your itunes media to the external and link the itunes library file to it

The music will now be on the external while the library file (the index as it were) will still be in the Users > Music folder of your mac.

If you want this library file on the external as well, copy it to the external drive, start itunes with the alt key pressed. Select the library file you just copied to the external and now both your music and the library are on the external

You can now delete the stuff off your mac

You can also use the choose library dialogue to switch between your large music collection on the external and a smaller music folder on the macbook if you wish

as for photos, maybe someone else can help - or do a search - it has been covered before

02-17-2008, 03:20 PM

With photos, you won't have to transfer the files to your local HD to view or edit them. To view, just access the external HD file where your images reside, and click on them. Simple as that. After you edit them, you'll simply save to the external drive, so that all of the data remains on your external HD. This is what I do.

02-18-2008, 09:53 PM

Okay, I have a few more questions. The fan on my MBP kicks up to around 6000 rpms when the drive is installed. Is that normal? Is it because it is drawing power? Also, is there a way to partition it so that some can be used for Time machine and some can be used for other files?

02-18-2008, 10:41 PM

I have had the fans on my Mac kick up a notch when I have been doing intensive copying, but not as high as you are mentioning. Is it like this when it is just plugged in, but not otherwise being used (i.e. you are not copying files back and forth)?

If so, perhaps Spotlight is busy indexing it, which cranks it pretty hard. To test that theory, when the drive is plugged in, open your Spotlight Preference Panel, click to the Privacy tab and drag the icon for the disk from your desktop to the Privacy area. This will stop Spotlight's index efforts more or less immediately. You should notice it right away. Once done, if this is the culprit, your fans should start to step down within a minute or so.

Let us know how it goes!