how to use time capsule for itunes

It's not a bad idea.

iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

1. Quit iTunes if it is already running.
2. Copy the entire iTunes folder from your Music folder to the shared disk.
3. Next time you launch iTunes on any Mac you intend to use, hold an option key while you launch iTunes. It will ask you to locate your iTunes Library.

If the shared volume ever becomes unavailable when you launch iTunes, you will need to repeat Step 3.

GGNYC1 wrote:

Hi:

I have a new Time capsule..and I want to use to store the Itunes liberary. Is this a good idea ?

No, sorry but it isn't. The TC is designed for Time Machine. It has no way to back itself up, and TM cannot backup network drives. It is slow to respond to requests because the green drive has built in fast spin down and slow spin up. The TC has no media smarts.. it has no smarts at all actually. It is a dumb as a board hard disk in an almost equally dumb router.. you can think of it as dumb and dumber!!

The how to do is discussed all over the place.. Apple have instructions on moving the itunes libary.. just look it up.

I currently have a mac-mini running snow leopard..which is my primary device for Itunes. Family has 2 ipads, 2iphones and 2 other macbooks...

Thanks

That is near to the ideal setup.. a mini makes a great media computer.. and will support iTunes.. just plug in an external drive and then TM can back it up.

It is going to take longer for the music to start playing.....8, 10, 12 seconds...hard to say. This bothers some folks and not others.

If you are considering moving the iTunes folder over to the Time Capsule, you might want to think about how you plan to back up what is likely a considerable investment in your media collection.

In other words, your "master" library will be on the Time Capsule. If the Time Capsule has a problem, you will lose the library if you don't have a backup on another hard drive.

I would recommend that you consider an alternate approach:

Move your iTunes folder over to another hard drive that is connected directly to your Mac via USB or FireWire.

Access to the libary is much faster this way. And, you can set up Time Machine to back up both your Mac and the hard drive....so you have "original" files on one drive and backups on another.

Like I said it's not a bad idea, but that doesn't mean it's a good one though. Its performance is a function of your network as you suspect - wired is likely to be successful, but wireless networking is difficult or impossible to predict. Under ideal conditions it will work, but ideal conditions are rarely encountered.

I don't depend on wireless for any streaming, because audio interruptions are intolerable. This is unrelated to using Remote on an iOS device though.

Your iOS devices will be synced to the iTunes Library you select. If it's on the Time Capsule they will be synced to that Library.