Using external drive for music & photos

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Using external drive for music & photos

I have a 1Tb Airport and a 5Tb external drive (toshiba) and they both run Time Machine, backing up both my wife and my iMacs in rotation. Works perfectly but I want to use the 4Tb+ spare as the Music Library and possibly the iPhotos Library for both machines. I assume I will have to wipe Tosh clean and create partitions - how I don’t know. Then I have to somehow tell our iMacs to use partitions 2 & 3 for Music and Photos, All our devices are networked via cable. Any advice gratefully received.

Posted on Aug 4, 2019 5:36 AM

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Answer 1

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rkaufmann87

Level 10

143,622 points

Aug 4, 2019 8:11 AM in response to QuantockRover

If you want to use the Toshiba for storing just your music and photos then yes, it would be wise to reformat it and then move the libraries onto it. It is EXTREMELY shortsighted and foolish to use the same External Hard Disk for back and storage because when the drive fails (they all do!!!) you will have lost not only your storage but the backup too!

Most wise users have redundant backups, for example they have one separate External Hard Disk for Time Machine and then another totally separate External Hard Disk and create a bootable clone using either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. Then if they want to do like you and move large libraries (photos, music, movies etc.) they get a third External Hard Disk and use that.

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Answer 2

Aug 4, 2019 10:47 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks, it seems logical to get another 1Tb external and pair it with the airport for backups. Then use the Toshiba as storage for the libraries. But if the Toshiba just sits there not as part of the airport how do I address it to tell iTunes and iPhotos where to look? Or can the Airport "host" disks not used for Time Machine.? Sorry to be a bit dense.

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,698 points

Aug 4, 2019 10:59 AM in response to QuantockRover

How is the Toshiba connected to the Mac. Your photos library can be on an external drive, directly connect to the Mac, but not on a network connection. So, USB is no problem. Anything involving networking is a no-no.

As to how to tell the Mac to look for your media on another drive: same in both iTunes and Photos: hold the option (or alt) key and launch iTunes or Photoss. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'

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Answer 4

Aug 4, 2019 3:42 PM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks for the library choosing info. But as I need to have both our iMacs accessing the same iTunes library I'd better find another solution if I can't use a network connection. I'm tempted to leave the Time Machine setup alone and give permission to user2 to access the iTunes library on Mac1 and store all the music on there. I could then allow user1 to access the photos library on Mac2 and move all the photos to there. Would that work?

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Answer 5

Yer_Man

Level 10

163,698 points

Aug 4, 2019 3:47 PM in response to QuantockRover

You'll note my comments were about the Photos library. There are a lot of options for sharing an iTunes library and I'd ask on the iTunes forum about those. Check out home sharing in particular.

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Using external drive for music & photos

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