iTunes Large Library setup guide?

Question

iTunes Large Library setup guide?

Very Large itunes library (7TB) on mid 2011 mac mini (maxed out RAM, SSD drive) with file storage on external Thunderbolt array. Internet speeds available in our area do not make cloud streaming the best option, so can anyone answer a few questions of what my options are?

1. Would a Mac Pro help iTunes performance and should i go for CPU speed or CPU Cores?

2. I have seen some suggestions about breaking Library into smaller ones, how would that effect our experience on the Apple Tv's (3 of them)

3. Any tricks or suggestions on other files that should not be on the system drive for best iTunes performance?

Apple TV's and mac mini are all hard wired to a commercial grade gigabit switch, no performance issues with playing movies at all, the issue is when you do anything within iTunes itself (scrolling the library contents is a great example, lots of lags)

Any advice would be appreciated!

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 30, 2015 8:16 PM

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Answer 1

May 2, 2015 8:50 PM in response to larryfromcanadian

Still messing around with this, but I did improve performance by moving the database files to the Promise Thunderbolt storage array (I had only moved the actual media files before). This instantly seemed to give iTunes a performance boost. The mac mini is connected a thunderbolt display, next I'm going to try dropping the resolution and see if that helps iTunes from 'sticking' momentarily, if it does, maybe my answer would be one of the newer iMacs with a more powerful video card? Any thoughts?

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Answer 2

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

May 2, 2015 10:39 PM in response to larryfromcanadian

I use iTunes on a much older computer. I know that as my collection has grown so has iTunes' response rate slowed.

A few things to note:

- Size may not matter so much in terms of total storage required but file count. What can matter in terms of file size is if you update a tag on an item as for most format files this may also entail re-writing the entire file.

- Smart playlists will slow down iTunes, particularly with large numbers of files

- iTunes constantly rewrites and updates its library file. You said iTunes sped up after you put this on the external, but although general advice says is it is best to keep all library items together it can sometimes be faster to keep the library file on a local drive with faster access. I can only guess that your fast connection means this isn't so much a limiting factor and perhaps the speed increase you noticed was due to something else competing for local drive use.

I have no idea about computer upgrades. My computer was made in 2002. 🙂

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