Can iMac Mountain Lion iTunes External Storage Drive Be Shared With MacBook Pro Yosemite iTunes?

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Can iMac Mountain Lion iTunes External Storage Drive Be Shared With MacBook Pro Yosemite iTunes?

I have 1TB LaCie d2 external drive that I have been using with my iMac (2013 21.5") Mountain Lion (10.8.5) iTunes (iTunes 11.1.4), and everything has been working great with this set-up. The LaCie 1TB drive is an exclusive drive for all my iTunes media. Even running the LaCIe (through iTunes 11.1.4, with my AppleTV, has worked out great.

Now I have added a new MacBook Pro Retina (13"), to my Apple "hardware collection" …. and am wondering if I can also link up the new Yosemite iTunes (v12.2.1), to the same LaCie hard drive. Would setting my new MBP iTunes to the LaCie 1TB cause any issues between the two versions of iTunes being run on two different macs and two different OSX's?

Any input is appreciated.

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), Apple TV, iPhone 4S

Posted on Nov 30, 2015 2:45 PM

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Answer 1

Limnos

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411,187 points

Nov 30, 2015 5:34 PM in response to DavidMac

Issues, yes. The library would be updated to work with iTunes 12 and no longer be openable by iTunes 11.

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Answer 2

DavidMac Author

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418 points

Nov 30, 2015 6:03 PM in response to Limnos

"Issues, yes."

That's what I thought …

I still haven't decided if I want to use Yosemite in both Macs, as I have a lot of applications that would have to be

updated from Mountain Lion. I'll have to see how Adobe CS6 runs on the new MBP, when I install it, BEFORE deciding to

stay with Yosemite, or iTunes 12

So the alternative would be, to reformat the LaCie drive, and "dual partition" (and label each), for the two iTunes versions?

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Answer 3

Limnos

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411,187 points

Nov 30, 2015 7:00 PM in response to DavidMac

Options I can think of:

- Downgrade iTunes to 11 on both if possible. Of course if you have devices requiring 12 you can't really.

- Store only media on the external and set up the two libraries to share media files which are not version specific. This takes a more concerted effort on your part to set up and keep maintained.

- If you're content to stick with 12.2 (no iOS 9 devices) you can run 12.2 on both. 12.3 requires OSX 10.8.5

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Answer 4

DavidMac Author

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418 points

Nov 30, 2015 7:33 PM in response to Limnos

So you think just reformatting the LaCie 1TB drive into two separate partitions ….. one for iTunes 11 (for the iMac), and another partition for iTunes 12 (for the MBP Retina), would or wound'nt work? I would then pretty much keep all the same media on both partitions (music, TV Shows, Movies, etc.), and depending on if anything were added or changed, on either iTunes version …. just the partition that pertained to the particular iTunes version would be updated. (?)

I would think then, both Macs would have their own library assigned to whichever partition its iTunes version was assigned to (?).

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Answer 5

Limnos

Level 10

411,187 points

Dec 1, 2015 5:39 AM in response to DavidMac

Oh, I thought one of the objectives was getting both computers using the same library. If you don't mind duplicating a lot of media files they can each have their own media which will make it easier to manage. You can run two separate iTunes libraries off the same drive without partitioning. I have 4 libraries on my hard drive all right next to each other in one folder. Note, a library is a complete iTunes folder, not just the .itl file. Do whatever you want/need to do to make the second library. Duplicate the first library's folder if that's what you want and name it something sensible. Start iTunes while holding down the option/alt key and select the iTunes Library.itl file in the iTunes folder you want that computer to use. Make sure you get the right one or else your 11.4 version library will be irreversibly updated.

By the way, here's a neat idea when using a library on an external drive as it is easy to accidentally start iTunes when the drive is not attached and it can default back to the internal drive location: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3282856?answerId=17051276022#17051276022 - "Create an alias of iTunes and place it on the network drive. Then drag that alias to the dock so when iTunes launches the drive has to mount if it is not already."

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