Sharing Itunes library and backup on external drive

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Sharing Itunes library and backup on external drive

Would appreciate if anyone can offer help on their experiences of external / NAS drives. I've been looking for the best solution to move my entire Itunes library to an external drive that I can put on the network so can have access from PC's, Mac and Iphone. Just recently moved to new MBP but still have PC's in home.

Have looked at varying solutions and think I've got it narrowed down to going for either QNAP TS212 NAS or dedicated Iomega Network hard drive but seem to come over a lot of conflicting reports of these items not working well with MAC, particularily some comments on the use of Iomega which is the more cost effective solution.

A little background was planning on 2TB drives and partioning for Itunes library, Time Machine backups and PC backups. Have the S/W on MAC to read/write NTFS.

From my research the dedicated NAS would be appear to be the best answer but a lot more expensive than a network drive.

Can anyone advise of a network drive that they have experienced working well for this type of configuration?

Also is there any issues with syncing Iphone to an external networked library?

Any Advice Appreciated

Thanks

Posted on Jun 4, 2011 3:05 AM

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Answer 1

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Jolly Giant

Level 7

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Jun 4, 2011 3:29 AM in response to Trevnew

Trevnew wrote:

Would appreciate if anyone can offer help on their experiences of external / NAS drives.

i recently moved my library to a NAS (from a directly attached firewire 800 external drive) and have not looked back.

Can anyone advise of a network drive that they have experienced working well for this type of configuration?

i would recommend this particluar item. i have installed 4x2TB drives, giving me 5.5TB of usable space in a RAID 5 configuration. the unit is (currently) expandable to 4x3TB drives.

you might find my discussion here useful.

Trevnew wrote:

Also is there any issues with syncing Iphone to an external netorked library?

not that i noticed. Synology even offer some free apps for your iDevices.

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Answer 2

Trevnew Author

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Jun 4, 2011 8:16 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Thanks for the information will go through the links, hadn't looked at that specific synology kit

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Answer 3

Trevnew Author

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Jun 4, 2011 11:50 PM in response to Jolly Giant

Hi this kit looks very similar to the QNAP I'd been looking at, but do you see significant functional differences between the DS411J and the DS211J apart from the number of drives as budget is a bit of an issue?

Thanks

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Answer 4

Jolly Giant

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Jun 5, 2011 12:22 AM in response to Trevnew

Trevnew wrote:

this kit looks very similar to the QNAP I'd been looking at

i've been told during my research that Synology is slightly more Mac friendly than QNAP.

Trevnew wrote:

do you see significant functional differences between the DS411J and the DS211J

everything will be the same except for the number of bays.

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Answer 5

Trevnew Author

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Jun 5, 2011 1:16 AM in response to Jolly Giant

That's great thanks I'm sold, will order one with the Samsung drives

Cheers

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Answer 6

Jolly Giant

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Jun 5, 2011 1:23 AM in response to Trevnew

you won't regret it, i'm sure 😉

btw, a fella called Stephen Inoue blogs about Macs and Synology. be sure to pop by and have a look:

http://macsynology.wordpress.com/

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Answer 7

Trevnew Author

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Jun 5, 2011 4:39 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Just had a look, very informative and more or less the same sort of setup I'm looking for. 😀

Thanks for all your assistance

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Answer 8

Isaakd

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Jun 21, 2011 4:00 PM in response to Trevnew

Fantastic responses, I keep on running into you on forums Jolly re the NAS 😝

I have/had the same exact questions and glad to see some brilliant answers... will be purchasing a Synology device now! 😀

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Answer 9

Trevnew Author

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Jul 14, 2011 12:37 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Hi JG

An update on my progress, got the NAS all connected and configured OK the MacSynology link was a great help 🙂 I've got some problems now with the "configuration" if you can offer any suggestions it would be appreciated here is the actions I went through

Copied Itunes folder from external drive to Synology NAS
On PC Changed preferences to look at the Itunes NAS directory opened and works fine
Did same excercise on MBP but ended up with libraries full of exclamation marks on music, tv shows, movies and audio books and requests to locate files to do this for each one manually would be virtually impossible
Tried all the uslual suspects e.g. add to library consolidate library etc. but no success
Went down the route that the problem was with the file paths in library XML file (still works OK on PC) so tried to edit the XML file to use the MAC path format (determined by manually locating a file and on "get Info" using the path reference as the correct way to go) No success with this either still exclamation marks.

Couple of questions that you may know the answer to,

Can the same library files be used for MAC and PC?

Is there a clear method to let Itunes do all the work and rebuild the library and XML files from some starting point?

Still have some reservations about the correct path to the NAS but hope the info in Itunes screen would be correct?

Any pointers or advice would be appreciated

Cheers

Trev

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Answer 10

Jolly Giant

Level 7

25,464 points

Jul 14, 2011 1:19 AM in response to Trevnew

hi Trev !

Trevnew wrote:

Can the same library files be used for MAC and PC?

basically yes.

Is there a clear method to let Itunes do all the work and rebuild the library and XML files from some starting point?

well, iTunes itself doesn't use the .xml file - this is created so that other apps (iMovie, for instance) can access the media files in your library.

try this on the MBP:

launch iTunes while holding the option (⌥) key, click on choose library when prompted, and select the iTunes folder you copied to the NAS.

does that fix it ?

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Answer 11

Trevnew Author

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Jul 14, 2011 3:27 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Thanks JG

Had tried the choose library option and navigated to NAS folder but when looked in preferences the old location was still there, eventually changed in preferences first then restarted ITunes holding option and choose NAS library this seemed to lock onto where I wanted it to be, but still showed an issue with the file locations and the exclamation marks. Will try again this evening as that was initially done about 2am in the heat of battle 😝

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Answer 12

Jolly Giant

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25,464 points

Jul 14, 2011 3:40 AM in response to Trevnew

Trevnew wrote:

when looked in preferences the old location was still there, eventually changed in preferences

Trev,

changing iTunes media folder location via preferences > advanced tells iTunes where to put new additions to your library, not where the current content is.

also, with your library now on the NAS, you must make sure the NAS is mounted on your desktop before launching iTunes.

... still showed an issue with the file locations and the exclamation marks.

you may have done something wrong initially (during re-locating your library to the NAS) because the exclamation marks usually appear when media files were moved using the finder and iTunes lost track of their location.

you might be able to use this script:

iTunes Track CPR v1.3

This script attempts to locate the files of so-called "dead tracks"--iTunes tracks designated with (!)--that you assume are not actually missing but are still located in the iTunes Music folder in their "iTunes File Order" (Music -> Artist -> Album -> file.xxx)."

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Answer 13

Trevnew Author

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Jul 15, 2011 2:24 AM in response to Jolly Giant

Thanks JG

changing iTunes media folder location via preferences > advanced tells iTunes where to put new additions to your library, not where the current content is.

Interesting when this was selected with old library location and I did "get info", it showed path on MAC rather than NAS after I had chosen the library at start up

Yes I've made sure the NAS is mounted and functional before attempting any operastions

You are correct of course may have done something unwittingly when went through the import on NAS for the library media files 😊

Thanks for the script will be back at home tonight so will attempt this over the weekend.and

hopefully successful

Have a good weekend

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Answer 14

Trevnew Author

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Jul 18, 2011 11:02 AM in response to Jolly Giant

JG thanks for all your help Success eventually after a long weekend trying the methods suggested from you and forums but eventually this one worked:

Copied all media files into a buffer folder on the NAS (could be anywhere)
Created new ITunes library on NAS left all the default naming settings
Opened library and set all the options: keep library organised, copy files to Itunes media folder and path to ITunes media folder again default NAS > music > ITunes > Itunes media
started ITunes on MAC with the blank library, opened Finder, dragged and dropped all the media file folders: TV Shows Movies Music etc. into the itunes window.
about 24 hours later all copying complete up and running in Itunes on MAC
On PC went into NAS and went to NAS > music > ITunes and copied itunes library file (shown with no extension) renamed copy to Itunes library.itl
Opened Itunes on PC using shift > Itunes (hold shift key down select ITunes only release shift key when choose/create library window is open) and navigated to NAS chose the Itunes library.itl file all OK on PC, Shut down Itunes
Went into MAC held option key and Itunes, chose the itunes library.itl file as well and opened Itunes all OK on MAC
Made sure sharing turned off on both machines

Tried most of the other suggestions of adding library etc but only this method worked for me

Celebrating now at last, perfect operation on PC and MAC also synch of Iphone on PC as use Outlook for contacts and calendar also synch on MAC if needed for Itunes on Iphone.

Guess this method will only work with one machine accessing Itunes at a time, have had Itunes open on both at same time and looks OK but haven't tried playing anything together yet ..... just in case!! don't want to burst my bubble.

Once again many thanks for the suggestions

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