[yakuzah]

Due the my ever growing movie collection for TV, I am in need of some advice please?

I know that the movies and TV folders are generally held within the iTunes folder. The problem is I have so many movies now, I am finding it very difficult to find storage in a single drive for my collection.

Is there a away I could separate the movies and tv from the main iTunes library and store it on a different drive?

Time machine is not a problem, as I have the different drives within my system backed up. It's just the storage.

Many thanks for any advice in advance...

Yakuzah.

[mdawson]

Your primary drive does not have to be the location for your iTunes library folder. In fact, you do not have to use the default iTunes Music folder for storing your media files at all. Your best option is to simply create a new folder on a (much) larger volume, set the location for your iTunes Music folder to that location in iTunes? advanced preferences, enable ?Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library? then consolidate your library.

Your media files will all be copied to the new location and iTunes will see that as your default library. You can then delete all of the files in your current library location and free up space on your primary drive for other data.

Large capacity external drives are pretty inexpensive these days, so it is a worthy investment for a large iTunes library. You can start your search over at OWC.

[smax013]

mdawson said:

Your primary drive does not have to be the location for your iTunes library folder. In fact, you do not have to use the default iTunes Music folder for storing your media files at all. Your best option is to simply create a new folder on a (much) larger volume, set the location for your iTunes Music folder to that location in iTunes? advanced preferences, enable ?Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library? then consolidate your library.

Your media files will all be copied to the new location and iTunes will see that as your default library. You can then delete all of the files in your current library location and free up space on your primary drive for other data.

Large capacity external drives are pretty inexpensive these days, so it is a worthy investment for a large iTunes library. You can start your search over at OWC.

In addition to what was offered, you do not need to have your library all in one place. If you DO NOT enable the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" then any content that you add to the library by way of the "Add to Library..." command will NOT move that stuff to the iTunes Music folder but leave it right where it is. Thus, if you rip your movies, you can store them on another drive, then use the "Add to Library..." command to add them to the iTunes library and they will remain where you ripped them to as long as you do not enable that option.

Now, I should not that ANY CDs that you rip using iTunes or content that you purchase from iTunes Store (movies, music, TV shows, etc) will still be put in the "default" iTunes Music Folder even with that option not enabled. But, you can remove them from the library (but DO NOT trash them) and then manually copy/move them to a new location and then re-add them with the "Add to Library..." command and they will remain in the new location.

[yakuzah]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I will keep my music locally and separate my Movies and TV I think onto different drives. That will allow me to have more space and not store everything into a single consolidated folder.

Many thanks all for the great advice.
G