Moving giant iTunes library to Synology NAS

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Moving giant iTunes library to Synology NAS

It's been about 10 years since I've had to do anything with the iTunes library, so this will hopefully be an easy fix for the community to help with. We have a GIANT iTunes library (8.6TB) and want to use the new NAS (Synology 1621+) as the new location for it.

I made a Carbon Copy Clone of the current external HD (shows 9.56TB) and connected it to the NAS directly to transfer the data. The NAS HD says 8.7TB, not the 9.56TB. I've tried using CCC to push the remaining files over, but after running the program at most it pushes two files over. Any ideas there? Picture included below

When I open iTunes (12.9.5.5), I held down the Option key and chose the iTunes.itl file on the NAS. It took about 10 mins, but it did load up! I then pointed iTunes (Preferences>Advance) to the where the library is on the NAS. All of the songs have the ! mark next to them. I've "located" the file to a handful of tracks and iTunes is now trying to find the missing files. Did I do this right? Should I have consolidated the library first? It's an exact replica of the current set-up on the main computer. Everything was saving to the external RAID drive and nothing to the laptop itself. I'm playing with iTunes on another laptop before we make the switch on the main computer that uses it. There are over a million songs and I expect it to take a while to find the 'missing' files, but if I need to do something different, please let me know. There is no folder/file that says iTunes Media in the iTunes folder.

Thanks for reading and for any help/advice.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.7

Posted on Aug 29, 2023 7:45 PM

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Answer 1

DHeckeler Author

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Apr 26, 2024 8:09 AM in response to Loren Ryter

Honestly what I've been doing for over a decade is naming the new drive the same as the old one. We've not had a LaCie external HD in 15 years, but that's what we've named every drive we've used since so iTunes/Music just works. Totally ridiculous, but it works.

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Answer 2

DHeckeler Author

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Aug 30, 2023 7:10 AM in response to DHeckeler

CCC wrote back and said it copied everything over based on the logs and they're not sure why the NAS is saying 8.7TB so I guess that part of the issue is resolved.

Any ideas on how to make iTunes see where the new location for the library is? Thanks!

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Answer 3

DHeckeler Author

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24 points

Aug 30, 2023 5:17 PM in response to DHeckeler

Do I consolidate BEFORE I point iTunes to the new location and then just copy that folder over to the NAS? Or do I open iTunes create a new library using the .itl file on the NAS and THEN consolidate everything?

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Answer 4

DHeckeler Author

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24 points

Sep 1, 2023 8:19 AM in response to DHeckeler

I renamed the folder on the NAS to be the same as the old hard drive and now everything plays properly. I never did hear how to consolidate the library properly.

When I've tried to import a new album this morning, the program keeps freezing every time. I've tried dragging and dropping...freeze. I've tried "Add To Library" and clicking the folder on my desktop...freeze. I've tried adding the file directly to the NAS and the finding it via "Add To Library"...freeze.

Any thoughts? There has to be a way to make changes to the library otherwise what's the point?

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Answer 5

Apr 26, 2024 7:07 AM in response to DHeckeler

This problem literally has kept me from buying a new Mac for years. I'm now in the process of trying something to migrate my also huge (2TB, so not 8TB huge) library to my synology NAS but so far just fingers crossed. That something involves using the "locate missing tracks" option rather than trying to consolidate files. I wanted to keep my existing file system organization by genre. (See end of this thread.)

I had music spread over multiple hard drives, without "keep organized" option -- always added music directly from where the files sat. I moved all the top level music folders to one "Media" folder on the NAS, pointed the iTunes Media folder at that, quit iTunes, unmounted the hard drives, and relaunched iTunes with the NAS mounted. Of course then all tracks are (!) and I played one and had iTunes "locate" the missing tracks.

Now, iTunes (on Mojave on MacPro, aiming to get to Music on current MacOS on new MacStudio next) has been beach-wheel spinning for over 16 hours so far -- hopefully trying to "locate" missing tracks -- but there's no way to determine what it's doing. Activity Monitor shows it as unresponsive and then temporarily responsive again, with some 40 open threads, using >100% of CPU time.

Again, fingers crossed.

Apple needs to come up with a way to point Music / iTunes at new file paths. Should have figured that out years ago.

(yay on Ivy & J Mascis btw)

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Answer 6

DHeckeler Author

Level 1

24 points

Apr 26, 2024 8:14 AM in response to DHeckeler

Including naming the new sub folder on the Synology NAS "LaCie" and pointing iTunes/Music to that. It found all the songs, but it was SLOW importing anything new or if we needed to edit anything. We still have the NAS as a secondary back-up, but are currently using a Terramaster Thunderbolt 3 Drive that's directly connected to the new M3 MacBook Pro. Much faster. Again named the Terramaster drive "LaCie"

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Answer 7

Apr 26, 2024 9:57 AM in response to DHeckeler

that's going to be my last resort. my problem is i had music spread over 4-5 HDDs, so i was hoping not to have to make 4 random NAS network volumes just for Music/iTunes.

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Moving giant iTunes library to Synology NAS

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