moving selected itunes files to new hard drive

[kwijibo]

Hi all,


I have a decent (20K+) music collection on various hard drives and use a Mac Mini to access them all. However, I am going away for a few weeks with my MacBook and would like to move a selection of the tracks to a seperate poratble hard drive so I can take it with me. I want to move about 50GB worth of tunes (they are all Apple Lossless). How do I do this so they are copied, not replaced. I want them to stay in the original place but allow me to move them to a portable HD. I own all the CDs, so legally I don't see any issue, I just can't work out how to do it. Anyone know how, or any software I need to do it?

thanks

Paul

[jont]

Create a new iTunes Library folder on your portable HD, copy those artist's folders of music you want to that new folder ... open the iTunes prefs and point it to the new library - when you get back - change the link back to the original library ...

Jon

[cwick]

Make a playlist, select all the files in it, drag and drop them onto a finder window on the portable HD.

[kwijibo]

thanks cwick, that sounds very simple....I tried highlighting the tracks in the playlist and dragging them over to the new HD, but it won't copy those files to the HD.

The playlist is big (3 days worth) so I can't go in and select the actual folders, I need to take them from the itunes interface and drag them into this new HD

[cwick]

That's a shame, it works fine here. Just dropped a 3.8 day 6.9Gb playlist onto an external drive, no problem at all.

Do you get the green + mouse icon when dropping onto the finder window, or the no entry icon ?

[kwijibo]

i can drag them in but I only get this (see attached), not the actual music file. I have 768 tracks on the playlist, and only 8 moved in properly....

I get the + sign letting me drag them in, but it is only this info going to the drive. I have tried this specific playlist and just straight from the libray of another mac too. Same result. I am obviously doing something stoopid.....

[kwijibo]

I don't know if it makes any difference but looking at the info for this Lacie HD, it says it is MS-DOS file system (FAT32).

Is that OK, if not how do I change it?

Also, if I drag one track, it works fine. If I drag lots, then it doesn't...is it something to do with the total size of all the files that makes it not like it?

[cwick]

Fat32 is fine.

Is there enough space on the HD for all the tracks ?

[kwijibo]

yep, its 120GB and empty. The playlist is 20GB

I've tried two seperate Macs too, so I don't now whats going on, driving me crazy!

[jont]

FAT32 drives can only cope with a max of 4Gb for an individual file - I guess it sees the playlist as one 20Gb file (even though they are individual songs) and says 'no way' !!

Break it down into 7x3gb playlists and you should be OK ...

Or treat yourself to an ipod and use that to play them back on as well !!

Can get some good bargains on the 5G models now (even in the sales forum) - or try the Apple Refurb store ...

Jon

[kwijibo]

aah ha!

so is it possible to reformat so it will accept a large amount of data in one go?

on the iPod issue, if I have the playlist on the iPod (which I do) and play it through itunes, does it take the digital file and play it out through the optical output on the macbook, or am I compromising quality and playing through the ipod dacs (they are not great). I really want to keep this all in the digital domain until it is sent out from the macbook (from the lacie HD) into decent dacs on a Lexicon processor.

reformatting the HD to accept large files seems the best option if it is possible....

[jont]

You can reformat the drive but to use large file sizes you'll need to format it as HFS on the Mac and then install an app called MacDrive in any windows machine that still has to use the drive ...

On the ipod I honestly don't know but would have thought it is easier to transfer/stream/play the digital file back out of the connected ipod and then out of the optical socket on the macbook ...

Jon