Can I store my itunes music library on an SD Card?

I am looking at new laptop computers and would like to store my itunes music library on an SD card so that I do not take up too much space on the SSD. Is this possible or do I need to store the library on the main disk?

Laptop-OTHER, Windows 7

Posted on Aug 11, 2015 5:03 PM

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4 replies

Apr 16, 2017 12:32 PM in response to pbh5

I get serious performance issues when running iTunes with the library on an SD card. I think the problem is that SD cards are designed for sequential reads and writes (as in a media stream from a video camera for example) and have problem coping with the more or less random reads that happen when loading album artwork, for example.


I now have the iTunes library on my primary disk and the iTunes Media folder on an SD card, which is working much better. In Preferences under "Advanced" you can set the iTunes Media folder location. Then you can consolidate the library to copy all media to that folder.

Aug 11, 2015 5:54 PM in response to pbh5

Yes, you can store your iTunes library on any accessible drive. The best approach is to have your complete library (database & associated files as well as media) on the same drive - see turingtest2's user tip on Make a split library portable.


Two points to note:


  • SD cards are limited in size, so you'll not have a lot of space for your library to grow
  • SD cards may have some issues with reliability / longevity, so be doubly sure to create and maintain a backup to external media and/or the cloud.


One of the four systems that I routinely run iTunes on (an HP Stream 7 tablet running Windows 10) uses a 64GB SD card for a small, local library.

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Can I store my itunes music library on an SD Card?

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