I currently have my iTunes library on an external usb hard drive connected to the Airport Extreme Base Station. I was wondering if I could connect an ethernet hard drive to the AEBS instead and if iTunes would still recognize it.
I have my entire iTunes library an an NAS drive that is accessed by my AppleTV unit. The thing that annoys me about this is that you must have the computer powered up and running iTunes before the ATV can find the library.
So by copying my entire iTunes library to a 1tb HD connected to my Mac and changing the path in iTunes, and so long as I have the Mac running the content can be streamed to ATV?
yes, files don't have to be in the iTunes
Folder to be in the iTunes
Library ( a text file that holds the location of all the files that you see when you open iTunes)
the trick is that you *press option as you drag the files into iTunes*. the files will stay where they are and not get copied into the iTunes folder and their locations will be noted in the iTunes Library file and you'll see them when you open iTunes and be able to stream and/or sync to your appleTV. computer needs to be on with iTunes running to stream to appleTV though. you don't even need to have all the files in one place... i have my music on an internal drive and my movies on a large external.
so you could buy a large external, move all your content, or some portion of it there, delete everything from iTunes ( *make sure you choose "do not move to trash"* ) then drag the stuff back in from their new location while pressing option and you are done.. just set up your sync/streaming options (if you choose custom sync be sure to uncheck "show only synced content on appleTV".. this will show unsynced content along side the synced stuff but will stream the content when clicked on.. no degradation of performance... ffwd, rwd, time to start playing no dif with synced content).
but first poster is right you cannot stream directly from drive to appleTV.. you must go through iTunes first.
