Question on how iTunes works

ChicagoLarry

Registered
I am reconfiguring my system of internal and external hard drives, in anticipation of a switch from Sys 9 to Sys X.

I have 125 gigs of music on an external hard drive.

I want to put Sys X on a 60-gig internal hard drive.

Will I be in trouble when I switch to Sys X because I have more music to put into iTunes than I have gigs in my start-up disk?

The reason I ask is this.... the old SoundJam program doesn't care where I store my music. It will play it from a 1-gig startup disk when all my music is on a different disk. But doesn't iTunes force all my music to be fully loaded into the program? I know it will let you store the music elsewhere, but isn't that basically, then, a SECOND COPY of everything? And won't I have to increase the size of my startup disk to more than 125 gigs just to be able to play all 125 gigs of my music in iTunes.

I hope that's wrong. But I need to know now, in order to know how to config my system.

One reason I fear for how iTunes works is because I know that iPhoto has that goofy requirement of actually having to load into the program ALL THE ACTUAL pictures that you want to watch in a slideshow. You can NOT use it to watch pictures, for example, on a CD. It FORCES you to import all the actual pictures off the CD and into your hard drive. (go figure) If the iTunes similarly forces us to import the full-blown files into iTunes in order to play the music, then I'm in big trouble, right? I have to get a startup disk bigger than my music collection, right?

Thanks. I will appreciate any insight.

By the way, I shared a CD-full of travel pictures with a friend, assuring him he didn't have to import them all, but could just use his slideshow to view them from the CD. Boy was I wrong! Unfortunately, his iPhoto downloaded every last one of them onto his computer! This is just one of the reasons I'm reluctant to switch to X. I fear iTunes will work the same way. Am I right or wrong?

Larry
 
In iTunes -> Preferences -> Advanced, you can set the music directory prior to importing all your songs. That way, your music will stay on your external drive. You can also choose if you want all newly imported music will go there.

Hope this helps.
 
Back
Top