iTunes library settings - new Hard disk.

Either but for speed copy the itunes folder to some where safe and stick it back in the music folder of the new install.

You will still then need to set the preferences of itunes to see the nas drive for music, but when it will update the library in seconds instead of hours.

Nice one - thanks Gary.

As Garyi says, if you have already set the iTunes music folder to the NAS (it defaults to the local drive under a lot of circumstances when using NAS - make sure you check immediately prior to importing the new library), then it SHOULDN'T try to move the files.

To be doubly sure, when you ask iTunes to import the new library, make sure that you have the preferences set so it does NOT copy the files to iTunes music folder when importing.

To be safe, do both, tell it NOT to move the files to the iTunes folder AND set the iTunes folder to the NAS folder where the files already reside.

allen,

why not just leaving the mini and itunes running 24/7?

Perhaps you could use a sleep setting if you are worried about power concerns. Usually if sleeping or hibernating, a mouse click or keyboard stroke will wake it up?

-p

Allen,

The drive doesn't automatically mount when you start the rip? Does it not give you an error, rather than ripping it jamming it in an unknown or undesired location. When you start it rip it should simply say to itself, "that location is not available, I should reestablish the connection to that drive, of there it is DONE!"

This is the very aspect of "Macs are just so easy to use" that people with ANY kind of idea of how to make a computer work, despise.

I recommend mounting the nas drive under smb. You do this in 'connect to server' in the finder.

Then add it to your start up items.

Job done, no need for scripts.

quote:

Originally posted by AllenB:

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
I recommend mounting the nas drive under smb. You do this in 'connect to server' in the finder.

Then add it to your start up items.

Job done, no need for scripts.

Understood garyi, and automountmaker does a similar thing. But the problem is that it takes a little while (maybe 30 seconds) for the network to come alive, ip addresses assigned, etc and the shares connected. In this time, iTunes has started and will not find it's usual shared folder. It defaults to the default.

The fix for this is not to have iTunes start at boot up if you have network shares, or delay the starting up of iTunes until after the shared drives are connected (by smb or afp, etc).

It's not that big a deal, but would be nice if this was all automated and foolproof. I am not clever enough or inclined to write such a script myself.

I have found that starting iTunes by browsing to the file in Finder, then opening it, ensures all networks and NAS drives etc are up to speed BEFORE iTunes goes looking. Basically, though, someone needs to find the setting in Itunes that can be altered to make it more "patient" if it can't initially find a drive or folder.

In reality when osx starts up it should be finding your network immediately. Mine is there before the dock even appears let alone app start running.

I would be sorting out the issues of your network. Do you have a decent switch? Is it gigabit? Can you make things wired if possible? Have you set IPs for your devices?

All these things helped me

For me Garyi it wasn't a network issue. This was fine and already "running". It was actually waking up the TimeCapsule disk from a standby mode. This was just taking too long sometimes and iTunes would default to the local folder. Sometimes this didn't matter and the music would play anyway. The only issue being that if, later, I forgot to check and ripped a new CD, it would rip to the local drive instead of the TC. Other times iTunes was never able to find the music (I'd get all those exclamation marks next to all the track names) until I went to it in Finder and opened it from there. Usually opening just one song would re-educate iTunes about where to look for playback (but not reset the ripping destination to the TC). A third scenario required me to actually re-import the library to get it to work. Not sure what the difference ever was.

Anyway, all my stuff is on my Mini now so it is a non-issue.

Winky,

Ok this might be a sloppy workaround but...

How about you rip everything to the default folder, have iTunes look at both the NAS and default folders, then periodically move everything over to the NAS?

-p

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
Winky,

Ok this might be a sloppy workaround but...

How about you rip everything to the default folder, have iTunes look at both the NAS and default folders, then periodically move everything over to the NAS?

-p

That's effectively what I really ended up doing. Every now and then I'd check the default folder; there would often be a few of my latest rips in there and I'd move them as a batch across to the NAS.

iTunes still seemed a little flakey on playback. It would usually remember where the files were, regardless of the "music folder" address setting. It would usually find files on either the NAS or local drives. Just sometimes it would forget to look at the NAS. Even if I re-set the "music folder" back to the NAS it sometimes still wouldn't find them. Opening a single file on the NAS from Finder worked, and then iTunes would magically be able to find all the rest. The little exclamation marks would disappear and my brow would de-furrow..

Winky,

The cool thing about all of this is that it is mostly an iTunes problem right? Have you tried another mediaplayer?

-patrick

Winky - was that via wired or wireless. Had a similar thing a long time back with iTunes via wireless. The Mac would wake, and in that time of restablishing a wireless link iTunes would not see the NAS and default to the local drive.

quote:

Originally posted by james n:
Winky - was that via wired or wireless. Had a similar thing a long time back with iTunes via wireless. The Mac would wake, and in that time of restablishing a wireless link iTunes would not see the NAS and default to the local drive.

Wireless

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
Winky,

The cool thing about all of this is that it is mostly an iTunes problem right? Have you tried another mediaplayer?

-patrick

Yes, I think it is an iTunes problem. No I've not tried another media player. I travel a lot and carry music on iPods, so I'm not really interested in duplicate systems. What might mostly fix it is having the option to LOCK the music folder selection in iTunes. Seems a very simple tweak, but still lacking.

I have "solved" it for now by getting a Mac Mini so the music is all on the local default drive. This also takes the wireless out of the whole loop which helps with reliability of playback (I don't really notice any difference in sound quality).

It will be interesting to see how it goes if I add a USB drive.

I might try the SSD and NAS option once the local drive on the Mini is full. I've never heard my Mini make a sound, though - so that's not an issue for me really.

I seem to remember you suggesting the alias/shortcut based workaround a while back. I think I tried it at the time but might have done it wrong, placing the alias inside the folder instead of replacing the folder with it. Any way, it's all good advice and, as ever, there are plenty of options.

James, I've attempted a similar thing many times, and you certainly don't need to duplicate your music at any point.

My music is stored on a FreeBSD box in the basement that I mount over NFS--essentially it acts just like a NAS.

While some are probably not essential (I do them out of paranoia nevertheless), the steps I usually follow are:

1. Rename your music directory on the NAS
e.g from 'Music' to 'MusicTMP'.

2. Create a new, empty folder on your NAS.
e.g. called 'Media'.

3. Do clean install on your Mac/PC, including completely fresh iTunes preferences.

4. Start up freshly installed iTunes.

5. Unselect "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library".

6. Change the "Media Folder Location" to the folder created in (2).
e.g. to 'path-to-NAS/Media'.

7. Quit iTunes.

8. Delete the 'Music' subdirectory of the folder created in (2)
e.g. Delete 'path-to-NAS/Media/Music'.

9. Move/rename your former music folder to that of the directory deleted in (8).
e.g. Move 'path-to-NAS/MusicTMP' to 'path-to-NAS/Media/Music'.

10. Start iTunes again.

11. Drag you media folder onto iTunes to load the songs therein into your library.

iTunes will scan the album/artist (etc) tags which may take awhile, but shouldn't move anything. It may also check the directory structure (if you've chosen to let iTunes "Keep iTunes Media folder" organised) which will also take a short while, but minutes, not hours.

[Ed: Just noticed that this thread is 3 days old, so James has probably done the re-install, but I'll post anyway]

I have no experience trying to maintain album art, as I always embed artwork into the song files, thereby bypassing the iTunes artwork database (and ensuring that artwork appears when I stream the music to other iTunes players using firefly).

I used to do clever things with aliases to use iTunes with music stored on an external volume, but recent versions have made it easy--you can specify a media location on another volume and iTunes is tickety-boo.

The downside is that it's very hard to get playlists saved on the external volume, as their saved in the iTunes config folder, not the media folder. This is a downside for me as I'd like playlists to be read by the firefly media server I have running on my NAS-like box, so they can be made available to other computers should my main iTunes-configuring computer be switched off, but firefly can't see my mac and the playlists thereon ('cos it's switched off!).

Nathaniel