"Newbie" seeking advice - complex question

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Level 1

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"Newbie" seeking advice - complex question

I will be migrating from a PC to a MacBook with an SSD (my first Mac since the mid 80s). My PC music folder is > 50GB, most in the iTunes folder, and I want to move it to an external HDD. I do not want to use iTunes Match. I have an iPad, which has a subset of my music on it, and an old 32 GB iPod which is almost full with music. I have been syncing them to the PC and will migrate that to the MacBook at some point.

I have not run Migration Assistant yet. The MacBook only has an Admin account, so far. I think that I want to move the PC (Windows 8.1 - not upgraded to 10 yet) Music folder, and make sure that iTunes on the PC still works, before running Migration Assistant. I assume (hope) that Migration Assistant will properly migrate iTunes settings to the MacBook so that it will use the external HDD (formatted for the PC). When I want to use iTunes on the MacBook I will plug in the external HDD.

So I am seeking advice that what I want to do makes sense and will not have any adverse consequences. TIA

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), also old iPod Touch

Posted on Jul 31, 2015 11:05 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,229 points

Jul 31, 2015 11:28 AM in response to BajaBarry

Attach the external drive to the Mac and format it with Disk Utility so it is Mac Extended. Windows NTFS will not work fully with Macs unless you use special software and you have a specific reason to not reformat it.

Once reformatted, drag the entire iTunes folder from the Windows computer to the external drive. Plug this drive into the Mac, start iTunes there while holding down the option/alt key and when prompted to select a library select the iTunes Library.itl file in the moved folder. This all presumes you use iTunes' default preferences settings for managing your media.

Migration Assistant should properly relocate other files such as any i-device backups (which are not stored in the iTunes folder).

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Answer 2

BajaBarry Author

Level 1

10 points

Jul 31, 2015 4:57 PM in response to Limnos

The drive I want to use is 1TB and has other stuff, mostly videos, that I want to use on both Mac & PC systems. So it looks like I'll need to follow this:

http://www.macbreaker.com/2014/06/how-to-enable-writing-to-ntfs-hard.html

It seems a bit odd that OS X doesn't support this fully. I did format another external HDD for use with Time Machine and noticed the ability to format NTFS.

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Answer 3

BajaBarry Author

Level 1

10 points

Jul 31, 2015 5:08 PM in response to Limnos

There are other concerns. There are some music purchases, mainly from Amazon, that are in the iTunes library, but the files are outside the iTunes folder, but all music, including iTunes is in the Music folder. So I would need to make sure iTunes on the Mac works with the whole hierarchy.

You state that after formatting the HDD to the Mac FS I should "drag the entire iTunes folder from the Windows computer to the external drive" but my understanding is that Windows does not support the Mac FS. Do you mean via a network connection?

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