Large music collection questions...

Hello All,

I am new to iTunes and I have a couple of questions I need answers to before I make a big mess.

I am moving from all windows to all mac environment. My music collection (77,000 songs) exists on several external HDD and are configured for the win 7 machine. The only organization for the collection is my own folder system, it has not been scanned or compiled into a whole by any program, win or mac.

I also have a Mini hard wired to a 2TB TC. I want to get the music into iTunes and I am looking for some direction.

First, I want to clean up the collection and get it all on 1 drive before I move it to iTunes. Or do I? This is my first issue, dont know what to do first. Do I work with the collection in Win first and then move a clean collection into itunes or move it to iTunes first?

I have read about the tuneup program and it seems like it either works great or not. Any opinions here? Of course I am smart enough not to just dump the whole collection on it and expect it to be fluffed and folded in an hour. It is available for Win as well as being an iTunes plug-in... is it better one way or another.

If the opinion is that tuneup is not the best program then what are the better alternatives?

Second question involves final resting place of clean collection. I want to keep the clean collection on an external HDD. Do I want it to be plugged into the mini or the TC for it to be shared accross all devices?

If there is something I am overlooking please chime in, as I said, new to iTunes and Mac and there is a lot to learn.

Thank you for your time in this matter.

Cheers,

Alex