What to do when hard drive space runs out?

[iamic]

Thank you. Long time, no post. Everything has been working flawlessly for the last year. A new development has me scratching my head however.

My latest additions to my CD collection have put me over the capacity of my hard drive on my Mac. I'm going to store my entire collection (80Gb) on my Windows box and I can store about half that on my Mac, which leads me to a couple of questions:


1. Is it possible to have all 80Gb in the iTunes library, but only 40Gb actually loaded on the Mac? Yes, I realize that sounds a bit silly, but don't jump to conclusions yet. My intention is to have my top-rated tracks stored on the Mac and the remaining portion listed in the iTunes DB, but stored on the windows box in a shared directory. i.e., these tracks would only be available when my mac is connected to the Windows share. Is this possible? Or do you guys have a simpler suggestion?

2. If #1 is possible, I'd like to create playlists (on the Mac), which include tracks on the Windows share. Can I sync these playlists with my iPod?


Sorry for my confusing prose. Basically my problem is I'm out of space. I want some on a Mac and some on a Windows machine - how do you guys do it?

Thanks!

 

[Nobody]

This question is not uncommon, but there is no solution that I know works for sure. I have an idea - use aliases to your Windows drive in your Mac's music folder - but it is completely untested.

 

[baggss]

Thank you. Long time, no post. Everything has been working flawlessly for the last year. A new development has me scratching my head however.

My latest additions to my CD collection have put me over the capacity of my hard drive on my Mac. I'm going to store my entire collection (80Gb) on my Windows box and I can store about half that on my Mac, which leads me to a couple of questions:


1. Is it possible to have all 80Gb in the iTunes library, but only 40Gb actually loaded on the Mac? Yes, I realize that sounds a bit silly, but don't jump to conclusions yet. My intention is to have my top-rated tracks stored on the Mac and the remaining portion listed in the iTunes DB, but stored on the windows box in a shared directory. i.e., these tracks would only be available when my mac is connected to the Windows share. Is this possible? Or do you guys have a simpler suggestion?

2. If #1 is possible, I'd like to create playlists (on the Mac), which include tracks on the Windows share. Can I sync these playlists with my iPod?


Sorry for my confusing prose. Basically my problem is I'm out of space. I want some on a Mac and some on a Windows machine - how do you guys do it?

Thanks!

1. I think that you can do it, but you will get the little "!" next to the tracks in iTunes every-time it tries to find the tracks that are on the Windows box and the network is not up. You will have to re-add those songs to your iTunes library when the Win drive is back online and then delete the ones with the "!" next to them. A bit cumbersome if you ask me.

2. Yes, as long as the Windows drive is on-line, it should work fine across the network.

A FAR simpler solution would be to just get a bigger drive for your Mac. CompUSA has GREAT sales on some big Maxtors every couple of weeks. I picked up a 200Gb 7200RPM drive for $129 a few weeks ago. That way you don't have to mess with the network. You can pick up external Firewire cases starting at about $50 to slap a big drive in if need be.

Just suck up the $$$$ and get another drive. You'll be glad you did in the long run....

 

[bhb399mm]

why dont you buy a 80GB (or even bigger) hard drive for like $100 and put your music on that?