How to safely move an iTunes library to an external drive?

[BLeonard]

A friend has an older G4 with two 20GB drives. His system and applications use about 15GB of space on the startup drive. His iTunes library has grown to take the other 5GB and he needs to use the external drive.

Can you just move the iTunes Library folder to the slave drive and then tell iTunes in it's preferences where to look for the library? Will his iPod still sync correctly? Are there any consequences to this approach that I am not thinking of?

When he first attempted to move the iTunes library folder he got an error -50 after the first few files copied.

I suggested in the long run he buy a larger 160GB drive and make that his master (from OWC of course).

But for now the best solution is?

[tronnei]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

[olnacl]

I just set the preferences to make the new drive the place to store the itunes files and to copy files into iTunes when importing. Then I "add to library" from existing library. Delete the original library when you're done. Takes only a little longer than copying the files yourself and iTunes seems happy when complete. You may get better advice from others who do this more often than I do.
Oops, too late and the link sounds even more concise.

[jimbrady]

Once again, more/better advice available here than at that other place: http://forums.dealmac.com/read.php?4,2565353

[DaviDC.]

My music resides on a different drive than the OS & I have an alias in the Music folder that points to the actual location.

[johnc]

DaviDC. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My music resides on a different drive than the OS
> & I have an alias in the Music folder that
> points to the actual location.

That method has always worked for me as well.

[the_poochies]

Hey, I asked the same question a few weeks ago!

http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/82303/82303#msg-82303

I followed the advice given via Tronnei at the Apple Support page and everything went well.

I use the external drive solely for iTunes and back it up on another external FW drive weekly.