Easiest Way to Move Media from One External Drive to Another?

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Level 1

1 points

Easiest Way to Move Media from One External Drive to Another?

My MacBook Pro only has a 500GB hard drive and I currently have all my movies on a 1TB external hard drive. Everything works fine through iTunes, but now since the 1TB is maxed out, I'd like to use my new 2TB external hard drive going forward. I understand that I need to re-route where iTunes finds the movies, but what is the easiest way to make the conversion from the 1TB to the 2TB?

I have copied all movies from the 1TB to the 2TB. Is the only thing left to do is re-route the location to the 2TB? Or do I need to drag and drop all movies into iTunes (they're all already in there)? Just didn't know if I needed to add them into iTunes again so they know to point to the 2TB drive. (sorry if I didn't explain that good!)

Thanks in advance for your help!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Apple TV 2

Posted on Dec 7, 2013 8:14 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,157 points

Dec 7, 2013 8:24 AM in response to Gtrcoop007

Do you only have media stored on the external or is the whole library and associated folders there?

If only media files there is no sure easy way. iTunes remembers their location on the old drive. You say movies but is it just movies or your whole media collection? If your whole media collection and you have allowed iTunes to maintain organizing your collection it may be sufficient to move the whole media folder to the new drive. All the links will break but if you guide iTunes into repairing one of the links it may offer to repair the others on the same basis. Conversely, if you just have movies on the other drive, you have taken over organizing media from iTunes and iTunes probably won't find them. The only other way I can think of to get around this is to give the new drive exactly the same name as the old drive and put the files in exactly the same structure. Essentially you are tricking iTunes into think the new drive is the old drive.

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Answer 2

Gtrcoop007 Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 7, 2013 10:20 AM in response to Limnos

Thanks Limnos! Really appreciate the help!

To clarify:

- I currently have only movies on the external 1TB drive (which iTunes points too). The downside is that I ALWAYS have to have my external drive plugged in, in order to play on Apple TV (or view on MacBook). I have appx. over 500GBs of movies on my external 1TB.

- All music (appx. 200GBs) is currently on my internal hard disk, but with a 500GB internal hard drive, that's going to fill up quickly (just so you know - I already have about 125GBs of pics in iPhoto AND work in Photoshop regularly so PSDs lessen my internal 500GB space quickly).

Eventhough I HATE having to keep an external drive plugged into my MacBook, I'm just going to have to suck it up and get used to it so I will have more space and my MacBook will run faster.

With that in mind, I was thinking about moving my music (200GBs) onto my 2TB external drive (along with the movies). So that would leave roughly the photos and Photoshop files (and random other things that are small in size) on my internal drive.

I could start all over and delete all movies that are in iTunes (the application - not the folders) and then drag and drop them into iTunes from the new 2TB, but I wasn't sure all the metadata (really the cover artwork) would be attached when I did that? Going that route really doesn't bother me since I've already copied all movies files from my 1TB to my 2TB. Basically, I would be starting over from scratch as if the old 1TB never existed.

Trying to run this through my mind and come up with the best/easiest way. What I don't want to do is try and find cover artwork for the almost 300 movies I have (and all the cover artwork for the CDs I have too if I decide to keep my music on the 2TB external drive).

Hope that helps and makes sense? Thanks again!

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,157 points

Dec 7, 2013 8:50 PM in response to Gtrcoop007

I actually have zero movies in iTunes and therefore no direct experience. I know some metadata exists in the files as well as in iTunes, but some does not, though exactly what I do not know. Some of it may not even be important to you (I know I never use playcounts).

Again limited knowlefge on artwork, especially re. movies. If you use iTunes to fetch artwork it just gets stored in iTunes. If you add artwork it becomes embedded in the media file and is portable (a copy is also added to iTunes database so embedding takes up extra space which can add up if you have high quality artwork in thousands of files).

One way to get around having to have your drive turned on all the time: Unless you impulsively watch movies and need to have instant access to them I would suggest you create a separate iTunes library just for movies. Have it all on the external drive. That way it will be portable in the future should you need to do another move. Start iTunes with the option key held down to switch to the movie library.

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