How do I back my iTunes library up onto a portable Hard-Drive?

Question

I have a lot of songs (respectively); about 5,000. I want to free up some of the memory space so I the computer will function faster.

How would I back up most of my library to the hard-drive without having them on the computer? My computer is slowing down.

Also, I would like to be able to plug my hard-drive in and then listen to the music on the hard-drive through iTunes too.

Is there any way that I can do this?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Yep - this is what I do.

Get a USB attached external hdd. Mine is a 300Gb Seagate - just search Amazon.com for USB hard drive - many will appear. Last time I looked you could get one for under $100.00

Make sure all your songs are properly set up in my music/iTunes first. Make sure your iTunes can find them all. I had Napster/music match prior to iTunes, music was all over the place and this is much easier if you consolidate in the format that iTunes likes. Their format is c:\my music\itunes\(folders by artist)\(folders by album). If you move a file, iTunes won't automatically find it, you have to tell itunes how to find it. You will see a little ! mark next to song in your library if iTunes can't find it.

Once you have that all straightened out. Copy your "iTunes" folder over to the USB drive just by doing a drag/drop. It will take a long time to copy them all.

Once you've done that delete everything in your iTunes library. Click on the first song, hold shift down and click on the last song - right click delete. When asked if you want to keep the files - say yes for now.

Now go to file - add folder to library - navigate to your USB iTunes folder and import the whole thing. Once you verify that everything works OK you can go back with windows explorer and delete your local music files.

Now in iTunes - preferences - advanced - change the iTunes music folder location to your USB drive. Anything you purchase after that will be put on the USB drive.

I share the USB drive on my home network, my wife and I each point our iTunes at this one drive - anything I buy - she has access to and visa versa. Works great.

One word of caution - those external USB drives are highly susceptible to shock. Put it someplace where it won't get bumped and NEVER EVER move it - even a little bit while it's powered on. If you knock it over while it's spinning you could lose everything in a split second.

Answer 2

First you need to move your iTunes folder onto the portable drive, then open iTunes and on the top bar select 'Preferences', then select the 'Advanced' tab, then the 'General' tab. At the top of that page you will see your iTunes music folder, which will be c:\***, on the left of that is a button that says 'Change'. Hit that and search for the new folder that you put your music in, i.e f:/** and select that and hit OK.
I'm not sure if your music has to on the same drive as the iTunes program, if thats the case, instal iTnes to your external drive as well and then put a shortcut on your desktop for it. Then you plug your external drive in, hit the shortcut and off you go.

Hope this helps