Moving music to NAS from Mac

Just drag and drop, its not rocket science.

Ideally your mac and NAS are on a wired network.

Ensure you copy the music to qnaps multimeda folder, and that its DLNA/UPNP server is running, twonky I think. There are other versions on the qpackage as well I seem to recall.

QNap have a program called NetBaK Replicator.

Choose multimedia folder on the NAS, as destination, select folder you want copy, and off you go.

As the name suggests, the program can be used to back up any folder to the NAS. Or backup files to the MAC from the NAS.

Depending on how many files you're transferring and how large they are (WAV are very big) if you have several hundred albums to copy, it will takes days to copy via a wireless connection. Fine if you don't need to take your laptop anywhere for a while! (If you're using a laptop)

Just in case if you use iTunes it is not simple drag and drop.

It can be, navigate to your itunes folder and it will all be organised neatly by artist/album

Drag and drop from there.

This way the iTunes Library may loose links to songs.  Better change the iTunes Library pointer to new location for music files then use the Consolidate function to import music files into new location.  this way the links to the songs are preserved.

I am on about copying, it won't touch the music in the folder.

If you are intent on moving your itunes library to a nas, this is dangerous as itunes is a bit crap, if it cannot find the nas it resets everything which is a total pain,

Most NASes now have a DAAP server. Run that for itunes to pick up.

I'm finally totally trashing my iTunes library and building another.  My current library was built up over around the past 10 years and includes all sorts of lossy stuff as well as lossless.  My Naim uServe library is of course all lossless.  There is substantial overlap of content.

So I'm letting the uServe make 320kbps mps copies of everything it has ripped.  Then I will make iTunes-compatible conversions of my flac library.  I'll plunk all of that into a new iTunes library that will live on my nas, and let iTunes Music Match have at it.  Done!  I have the luxury of starting over and thus do not have to move the library.

(I am happy with 320kbps in the car, and when I am out of the home, I rely almost entirely on Music Match to get music onto my iDevice.  I actually never use iTunes in the home -- it's just a way of feeding my iPhone and iPod for the car.  I have a feeling that the iPod in the car is soon to be a dinosaur too -- probably moving on to usb sticks.  Although BMW do directly support the iPod, but to what benefit at this point I don't know.)

That's interesting Mr Wat. How exactly do you do that please.

No, better use the "Consolidate Library" functionality which imports physical files (songs) to new location.

I use Alias-es too .. works fine. In case of queries, always have a look at the iLounge website with very helpfull info.

@Bart: like your approach with two similtuanious (Lossless and MP3) libraries. I have similar where iTunes manages the 320kbs and MediaMonkey does the "serious work" :-)

If you are still using iMac to control your server stored music, make sure when you restart computer or server,iTunes isn't running other wise it will default to it's iMac location.

I just re-connect to server via finder , re-start iTunes and double check the default location is on the server.

Thanks Wat, that makes sense; probably easier to use the terminal.

I use a Drobo to store my music & photos etc. This is set to go to sleep if it's inactive for a while which is fine, iTunes seems happy to wait whilst it rouses itself, but if the 'puter's booted up & I immediately go to iTunes it will often default to the original location. Annoying if you've been happily ripping CDs to the wrong place by mistake!

I do wish Apple would fix this, it's a nuisance.

I do wish Apple would fix this, it's a nuisance. 

Stumped the tech in the local iStore, who suffers from this too.

I just use a script that runs as a start up item. My NAS and Mac mini turn off overnight and during the day as they are not used. Both run timed schedules for power on and power off.

The NAS is timed to come on 10 mins before the Mini. When the mini starts up, a script runs to mount the NAS as a share. It then waits 30 seconds before starting iTunes. 

James

These are all poor solutions to what is basically crap software.

Stop using itunes, its rubbish.

Or utilise your nases in built functions and run a DAAP server. Symbolic links and start up scripts will end in tears.