ITunes transfer questions

[2stepsam]

Noob here, this may have been asked plenty but I’d appreciate any suggestions you folks might offer.

 

i have a medium sized music library on iTunes in a Mac mini.  The mini is incredibly slow and I don’t use it anymore having opted for a pc laptop for working from home.  I tried transferring my music library to iTunes on my pc but it didn’t go well, maybe 20 albums transferred.  Any suggestions for freeing my library from iTunes jail?

 

Secondly, would I be better off with a NAS than a computer for music storage and accessibility?

 

thanks for any help you can offer.

[GregWormald]

Just use the MacMini as a music server. You can also use it "headless" (no screen) and use the PC as a manager by remote access with the Mini directly connected to the stereo.

Music servers don't need to be fast. Serving music is not a hard task.

 

I've got 3000+ albums on a Mini and it works fine.

[2stepsam]

Thanks Greg 

So I’m thinking of running a USB cable to my Oppo  105 Then connecting to the preamp. Does that sound like a good solution?

[GregWormald]

11 hours ago, 2stepsam said:

Thanks Greg 

So I’m thinking of running a USB cable to my Oppo  105 Then connecting to the preamp. Does that sound like a good solution?

"sound like a good solution"?😆😆

 

Yes, that should work well.

The only true measure is if it sounds good to you.🙂

ps--keep at least two backups of the music if you haven't already. Electronic storage fails eventually.

[Phil C]

I maintain a 23,000 song iTunes library on a few PCs.  I have moved my music library from one PC to another. I did it by copying the standard iTunes Media folder containing the songs on the old PC to an external USB drive; connected drive to new PC; opened iTunes on new PC and selected File, Add Folder to the Library and pointed to the iTunes Media folder on the drive.  It took a while but completed okay.

 

It’s curious that only some of your albums imported into your PC's iTunes and that might be a clue.  Two possible culprits come to mind:  music formats and consolidation.

 

Music Formats

Are some songs in WAV format or other non-iTunes import friendly formats?  For WAV, iTunes will only import Song name and not Artist or Album names. iTunes expects you to add the Artist and Album name manually.  You can see a song’s format in iTunes by looking at “Kind”.

 

Also, in iTunes on the PC,  highlight a song, click “Get Info”, click “File” tab, and look at Location.  Location should be like:

 

<drive>:\iTunes\iTunes Media\Aaron Neville\Best of Aaron Neville\03 The Bells.aif

 

This shows that it imported in the desired    Artist\Album\Song    folder and file structure.  If not, it’s a clue to the problem.

 

Consolidation

How did you move your iTunes music library from Mac Mini to PC?  Here is a link to some Apple Support instructions that may assist you.  I don't know of Apple Support instructions specifically for copying from a Mac to a PC but these should help.  Consolidating your files per the instructions before the move may be the solution.    

 

 

Back up and restore your iTunes library on your PC

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201625

 

Because PCs and Macs use different operating systems, there may be some technical problems because of that.  I'm not a Mac user so I can't help out there.  But the fact that some of your albums did import leads one to believe this did not cause the problem.

 

About NAS:  Can do automatic file backups on separate mirrored drives and provides one central music library for all your music players (PC and/or Mac) on your LAN.  Most NAS can connect to an external USB drive, so you can make an external copy of the music library in case the NAS has a catastrophic failure.  Backing up is soooo important.  So, NAS keeps the music library safe and can keep your other data safe too.

 

But, a NAS complicates things by bringing more technology to the party and access to your music library becomes reliant on more equipment, such as,  NAS, router, and Ethernet cabling….  More that can go wrong.   This makes for more complicated troubleshooting if things go wrong.  Also, there is setting up and maintaining a NAS which has its own user interface.  Some fail at that, but those who climb that learning curve seem pleased.  A lot of pros think NAS is the best way to go.

 

Hope to hear back from you.  Cheers.

 

Phil C