I've also been in IT for about the same amount of time, so you're kind of in the same position I was in four years ago when I discovered iTunes.... However in my case I was looking for a way to have my computer
simplify my life (isn't that what they're
supposed to do?
), as with my previous solutions I was spending far more time
managing my music than I was actually
listening to it.
The key point for me is that I
wanted my computer to be the central repository of my music and my library, and it frustrated me that every other device I used treated the portable media player and the computer as if they were completely unrelated to each other. iTunes and the iPod solved this with it's rather brilliant synchronization concept -- the iPod becomes an
extension of the main library, which was
exactly what I was looking for -- managing my music in
one place, and have it seamlessly updated everywhere else I wanted to use it.
Anyway, to your specific point.... If you want to leave the music in its original folders on the PC, ensure that you turn OFF the
"Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option in your iTunes preferences (see
Edit->Preferences->Advanced). This will cause iTunes to leave any tracks you import in their original locations, and simply reference them in the iTunes library folder. If your files are already in your iTunes Music Folder path (see the same preferences screen), you'll also want to turn off
"Keep iTunes Music folder organized". iTunes will attempt to reorganize (move) any tracks that you import directly
from the iTunes folder into it's own naming structure unless this option is turned off.
Basically, iTunes considers it's own "iTunes Music Folder" to be it's "home" folder. Anything in this folder is fair game to reorganize or move (subject to the
"Keep iTunes Music folder organized" setting). Anything references from outside of this folder will
never be touched by iTunes.
Note that any music you download from the iTunes Store, or podcasts that you subscribe to, or CDs you import yourself through iTunes, will always be organized into iTunes' own file-system structure regardless of these settings (when creating a new file, iTunes has to put it
somewhere).
The most important thing if you're
not going to let iTunes organize your file/folder structure is that you must
not move or rename any files once you've imported them into your iTunes library. iTunes stores the full path to each file that you import, and if you rename or move it, iTunes will lose track of it, resulting in a broken link. For the occasional individual file, you can simply double-click on the entry in iTunes and manually point to the new file location, but as you can imagine this would be tedious for hundreds or thousands of tracks. Make sure that your music is organized the way you want it
before you import it into iTunes if you're going to do this.
Note that unless you're using something else to manage/access your media, there's not really any compelling reason to
not let iTunes reorganize your files. They're just
files after all, and if you're going to access and manage them through iTunes, then you should never need to look at the underlying file system -- in fact you can even copy tracks directly from iTunes to another folder by highlighting them in the iTunes application and dragging-and-dropping them out directly from there, so there really is no need to worry about the underlying file structure unless you still plan to use some other software to also access your files.
Of course, you can also take baby steps.... Start with your files where you want them (with the
"Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option turned OFF), and if you decide later to bring them all into iTunes' own file and folder structure, you can use the "Consolidate Library" function, found on the "Advanced" menu in iTunes, to copy all of these into your iTunes Music Folder (wherever that may be), organized into sub-folders by ARTIST and ALBUM.
Note as well that as the name implies, if the
"Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option is enabled, it will merely COPY any imported tracks into your iTunes music folder (assuming that's not where you're importing them from). Your original tracks will be left in their original location for you to do with what you will, but they will not be used by iTunes in any way. This should provide you with some flexibility to experiment and decide how you really want iTunes to handle things. Just make sure that you do
NOT set your "iTunes Music Folder" path to your
existing music folder.
Check out our
Beginners' Guide to Filling your iPod for more information on how all of this fits together. Our iPod 201 article,
Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive also has some useful tips you may want to keep in mind for the future.