jdeviney wrote:
- You need to create a new iTunes Library on the WD My Cloud Public Share. On Mac you can do this by holding down the option button while double clicking iTunes icon. On Windows it’s similar with control or shift.
I think you have the right idea, but I learned the hard way that you really have to be precise with which terms you use to describe which iTunes components. (I should point out that i use a Mac, not a PC, but I’m guessing the principle is the same.) Your iTunes “library” is *not* the big collection of artists and albums and song files, although for obvious reasons it’s often referred to as the “library.” The library proper is actually a single file, the “iTunes Library.itl” file, typically located on a Mac in [home folder] > Music > iTunes. It’s the index that tracks where all the track files are located.
I think the simplest setup is to keep that “iTunes Library.itl” file–and all other iTunes files *except* the “iTunes Media” in its usual spot on your local drive. The only thing that needs to get moved to the My Cloud is that “iTunes Media” folder, and then in the iTunes preferences, you specify where the app needs to look to find that folder (just as jdeviney said). So the main iTunes folder stays intact, as it’s always been, on your hard drive, with that one exception of the “iTunes Media” folder.
One last thing: moving your collection of tracks (or any iTunes media) doesn’t work so hot if you just drag and drop them from your drive to the My Cloud. The best way to migrate the media is from within the app itself. These are the official instructions for PCs, straight from the Apple horse’s mouth:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
It’s a round about procedure, but it keeps everything intact, like playlists and all sorts of metadata like tags and ratings. I discovered the hard way that just moving the files can cause more headaches down the road. I’d follow Apple’s instructions to the letter.
Hope this helps. Sorry if I ended up just lecturing you on obvious stuff you already knew…
EDIT: I also learned the hard way that moving iTunes media to the My Cloud can bring it to a grinding halt. That’s because it’s OS not only indexes files you add to the device, there are processes for media sharing that automatically make thumbnails of images that get written to the drive. If your iTunes media has a lot of album artwork, the My Cloud stupidly begins making thumbnails of all those images… It’s indiscriminate in what it thumbnails. With my ~40k track collection, the drive just melted down. (My hunch is that that’s what’s causing so much grief for so many people on this forum.) This thread explains it all:
The fix described in that first post to terminate those processes and use the “update-rc.d” commands to prevent them from restarting with each boot worked perfectly for me.
