Where is "Backup to Disk" in iTunes 10.4?

But you can't add new/changed media onto the end of the collection of discs, and it won't backup the library database files.

tt2

Hi. Restoring an archived MobileSync Backup folder to the correct location on a new PC and integrating it into a fresh install of iTunes is beyond most users. I'm not sure why you concentrate on this rather than backing up the media and the library files. Were I a novice with iTunes I think I would find your post more confusing than helpful...

tt2

iTunes. Menu. Edit|Preferences. Select Sharing Tab. Tick the box "Share my library on my local network"

Select either Share entire library, or, Share selected playlists (tick boxes as required).

Menu. Advanced. select Turn on Home Sharing. Enter your Account details (Username and password).

Do the same for your second machine and ensure under Menu|Store you "Authorise this Computer".

Log in to both machines on your "Home Network".

Open iTunes. The Libraries for each machine will now appear in the Shared area of iTunes (lefthand pane in windows).

Youcan now import/export between the two librariesas you wish, stream to each machine and stream from one machine to say a TV using Airplay by accessing the library of the second machine. See here for more details

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3819

To Back Up.

Create a playlist called Backup (add date to name of file if you wish.)

Add whatever you want by going to your library and dragging the items required into the Backup listname holder. When you have finished. Right Click. You have the option to either Export or "BURN TO DISC"

You can also create a Duplicate which will enable you to keep track of what is in your original or last Playlist Backup.

Hope this now solves everyone's problems.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 For further information concerning backing up manually, consolidation of files in iTunes Media Folder, backing up and copying libraries to new machines. There are some noted limitations where data souurces are not from iTunes (ie content downloaded from other sources). or have limitations due to the formatting of the system disc. I will endeavour to help those who have such problems.

When I click burn to disc should I leave it as Audio or change to data dvd?

DataDVD.

However, at the risk of repeating myself... There is more to a "library" than just the media. Information about ratings, play counts, playlist membership etc. is not stored in the files themselves. This User tip provides a comprehensive backup strategy using free tools. If you only backup the media then should something fail you'll find you can't restore the library to its current state.

tt2

Careful there turingtest2 stating that as a fact. I've recently researched and executed a backup strategy, and the majority of people see external hard disks, the cloud, and USB flash storage as superior backup solutions. However that is not unanimous. And there are numerous horror stories of these media not working as backups.

All of those solutions are read/write. That means if your computer or home network is infected by a virus, are vulnerable to infection, corruption, or total deletion.

Secondly all of those solutions are medium term at best. All hard drives will fail. Even if you unplug them and take them offsite, the magnetism will fail after a few years. Using hard disks commits a person to a lifetime of copying expanding datasets from one hard drive to another to preserve at least one and ideally 2 versions.

Most CD and DVD media are no better, which I assume is what you base that advice on.

However I have a stack of 38 Taiyo Yuden archival DVD+Rs on the desk in from of me. I've used 12 of them to archive photos, video, and music which are not going to ever change, but I want to have a backup of them and have them around for many more years. They will soon be taken offsite. This strategy has plenty of merit (though none is perfect).

I am reading this thread after planning to use iTunes to conveniently backup my music directly onto one of the blank ones.😢

I'm sure you can tell which of my statements should be treated as opinion and which as fact. Neither have changed in 18 months. iTunes own internal backup-to-CD/DVD feature has been removed. There is absolutely nothing at all to stop you using 3rd party tools to achieve the same ends. DVD may well be a better long term storage solution, but if a library is live and changing, and needs more than a few DVDs to backup, then the chances are most people won't keep up the effort. I have copies of my iTunes library on two different computers, in two locations and a portable harddrive that keeps the two in sync. I can afford for any one drive or computer to fail, be compromised, or destroyed, and still recover my library. The process I use also lets me know what has been changed each time I update the archive so I'm aware should anything go awry which needs to be undone.

tt2

audio

Click file, point to new then select playlist folder then below select Backup to CD Playlist then put a check mark next to the songs to be burned to CD. You may need several blank discs depending on number of tracks chosen.

This thread is 2 years old. Your suggestion is one way of backing up some songs, but an iTunes library is more that just a collection of the songs it contains. Viable alternatives to the feature that was removed have already been proposed in the thread.

tt2

go to this site Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive - Apple Support, but instead of backing it up to an external drive, just back it up to a dvd instead, at least that's what I did. I haven't tested it yet to see if it works but all the files appeared to be there. For the dvd my computer gave me the option of using it as a music cd or more like a flash drive. I selected the flash drive option.

In theory that should work, but my experience has been that DVD-Rs are considerably less reliable than external HDDs as a backup medium. I gave up on using DVD-Rs for this (but not for iTunes) having found that some discs that were only a couple of years old had multiple CRC failures on some of the backed up data. DVD-Rs are also pretty limited in capacity - even a medium sized iTunes library will exceed 4.7Gb so any backup strategy would have to work across multiple discs. Given that 1TB HDDs are available for less than $100 using two for backups, and keeping one offsite, is a reasonable approach ... though with the costs of cloud storage falling dramatically that may become a viable option (assuming that one has the time and internet bandwidth to do the initial upload).