Running programs off an external Hard drive (namely iTunes)

Does it work, My hard drive on my laptop is seriously running out of space and with a new Ipod coming for Xmas I need more storage for all my mountains of CD's and to download my regular podcasts.

So will I have to uninstall itunes and reinstall it on the new hard drive or is there a way to get itunes to redirect and save in a different folder.

Was looking at a couple this;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000MES2UE/sr=1-1/qid=1196262634/ref=cm_rev_next?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=560798&s=electronics&customer-reviews.start=11&qid=1196262634&sr=1-1

Seems to have had a few negative reviews but they sound like faulty drives has had a ton of positive ones.

And this one;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-120GB-Passport-External/dp/B000IAZ566/ref=pd_sbs_ce?ie=UTF8&qid=1196263276&sr=1-30

Don't wanna spend more than £50 and needs to be USB powered for ease of use. Also wanna try and stick to buying off a reputable seller so if I have problems I'm ok.

Cheers for any advice that can be given.

It is easy to just keep the media from an iTunes library on the other hard drive. Just throwing the application on the drive won't do anything, the media will still be on the boot drive.

A better way to conserve space would be to move your old files onto the drive and do that every month or so.

Are you on a Mac or a PC?

I'd say install iTunes on your laptop, store your media on the ext. HDD

Thats what I just said.

Except its more summed up and doesn't rattle on about something else.

But the other information could be useful.

http://www.getusb.info/run-itunes-on-a-usb-drive-or-usb-stick/

Or just do what ashmat said.

Is there a way for itunes to load the library off the other drive.I mean so it auto downloads podcasts to the other drive and auto rips songs off cd on the other drive.thanks for the advice guys, all figures.

flameboy! I had bad experience trying to run itunes from an external HD.

Sometimes if you load itunes before it is on, it doesnt recognise it OR the drive letter changes and it cant find your library! you can set it to the right place BUT you will need to readd eveything... not a good experience.

Though with 2.0 usb it is good to say put all your videos i.e. movies anime etc on it caus its fast enough. just not music..

flameboy! I had bad experience trying to run itunes from an external HD.

Sometimes if you load itunes before it is on, it doesnt recognise it OR the drive letter changes and it cant find your library! you can set it to the right place BUT you will need to readd eveything... not a good experience.

 

Though with 2.0 usb it is good to say put all your videos i.e. movies anime etc on it caus its fast enough. just not music..

ah damn it...I just don't have enough space on my hard drive to put it all on.

i propose an internal?

or.. yah

Could you upgrade the HD in your laptop? How big is your current one?

oo dear laptop. Didnt see that. I mean replacing a HD is possible.. it isnt as hard as replacing other things in a laptop..

Yeah I wanted to avoid replacing it....too much hassle for me to do...It's only 30gb even deleting all my music and games (only actually have football manager) which i did not that long ago doesn't free up enough space for music.

If you only have a 30 gig drive you really should replace it. Its not that much hassle. Just back up, Replace the drive, re-install whatever OS your running, and restore from backup.

Though its easy enough just to put all your itunes media files on an external hard drive. You have to tell iTunes in the preferences not to copy the files to the music folder when you import them. Then move all the files from your music folder to a folder on your external HD. Delete everything from iTunes and then re-import it from the external HD.

You don't actually run iTunes from the external HD you just have the media there. The iTunes application file should stay on your boot drive. Now if a Mod could re-name this thread to make the title accurate.

nonno it is the fact that itunes has to look for the media in another place namely an externa driver, that is the problem.

if the drive is on before itunes = problems

if the drive gets another letter = problems

both cases you ahve to re-add the media again in one mass OR go through each one and locate the media..

Well thats how you do it. What version of iTunes were you using. This has worked fine for me.

http://www.getusb.info/run-itunes-on-a-usb-drive-or-usb-stick/

 

Or just do what ashmat said.

What about this method? Seems pretty straightforward. think for now I will just do what others have said unless people recommend this way.

nonno it is the fact that itunes has to look for the media in another place namely an externa driver, that is the problem.

 

if the drive is on before itunes = problems

if the drive gets another letter = problems

 

both cases you ahve to re-add the media again in one mass OR go through each one and locate the media..

Just assign the external HDD a letter so its always the same one. Make sure the HDD is on got to Control panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Managment, Then in the left hand panel click Disk Managment right click on the external HDD and the assign it a drive letter. Every time its turned on it will use that drive letter thus iTunes wont get its knickers in a twist.

Microsoft really should have got rid of the drive letter system. (or did they in vista?)

well have preordered a drive for collection from comet tomorrow. Gonna get that and change in my preferences to locate my music folder on the other drive. Does it auto download podcasts to new location as well?

Next question is should I reformat it to NTS (or whatever) or keep it at FAT32.

dunoo you can easily find out if you have itunes already installed. Just test it with different places in the computer. It should replicate the same outcome.

Microsoft really should have got rid of the drive letter system. (or did they in vista?)

Thankfully it's still there, i'd worry about what they would have replaced it with in Vista. The OS is full of great ideas, but many of them complicate things by trying to simplify them (the Start menu, for instance)