Need more memory storage/iTunes problem

[Tool Guy - Kg]

I need more memory storage on my computer and am considering adding a hard drive. I saw an add for external hard drives going for about a $100 and this has my interest.

Any initial suggestions on things to consider before I get going on this?

[jgleason]

External drives are great for additional disk storage. This is different than "memory" though.

Lots and lots of externals out there. Spend about $80 and you can get a nice 1TB model.

Go to NewEgg.com and look at the external hard drives. Lots of them available with free shipping and well under $100.

[davem]

Hi Kurt,

I use external drives quite a bit. They're very handy. Any idea how much space you need? Any speed requirements? $100 will buy a lot.

I keep an eye on several deal sites, here's one of my favorites: http://bensbargains.net

Type "external hard drive" into the search and you'll see the typical sale prices. Some of what comes up will be expired, but the deals happen constantly. When I'm in the market I just check the page every day until I see what I want.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

Thanks for the links.

Dunno how much storage. 300G seems like enough for me, so 1TB is probably more what I need.

Speed? I dunno how to compare. Sure, I can look at specs, but can't translate that for my needs. I'd hazard a guess that it wouldn't matter much, as this would be storage for pictures and music so as to free up the computer's hard drive.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

Thanks for your help! I set out to purchase locally and had in mind to spend about $90 for another unit, but I lucked out finding this tiny 1tb external hard drive for only $80.

[davem]

Great price. I've got a smaller WD my passport sitting in front of me right now. Good unit, no problems. Did you get it at a chain store?

[Tool Guy - Kg]

I went to two stores to shop a bit...the first had the identical unit for $100.

And then I went to American and found it for $80. While the price I paid is half of their published going rate, there was a single unit that they referred to as a "transition" item (slightly older version) for the $80.

[oakview]

Good buy Kurt - them external drives are right handy. I've had a 500 GB USB Buffalo drive for 2 years and couldn't live without it. There's a safer feeling knowing your stuff is backed up and readily accessible without having to go through the hassle of mounting a tape drive.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

So I've got one of those little iPods and just loaded iTunes. To save space on the internal C: hard drive, I thought I'd load the iTunes software onto my new external hard drive. That way everything and the CD library would be neatly stowed in one spot. Everything works, but for a couple of reasons, I think that was a mistake:

1) I can't safely eject the hard drive that's plugged into the USB port. An error message says that it can't be disconnected now and to try later. Well, later never comes. And...
2) No sound comes from the speakers.

I've opened up the task manager and see that a couple of "iTunes" processes are working...even though it's been days since I used iTunes. So I'm guessing that the software on the external hard drive needs a continuous connection to the C: drive and that's the basis for my problem. And I'm not positive, but it seems like the external hard drive runs almost constantly.

To hopefully solve the problem, I was going to uninstall iTunes from the external hard drive and reinstall it to the C, but have already loaded up a number of CDs to the library and I'm afraid I'll loose those and have to reload them if I do. This fear of loosing the CDs is the only thing keeping me from re-installing iTunes to the internal hard drive.

Was loading the iTunes software program onto an external hard drive a mistake?
Any advice on maintaining the CD library if I indeed need to move iTunes over to the internal hard drive?
Do external hard drives seem to run almost constantly, or judging from my described problem of not being able to safely eject lend evidence that there's an abnormal connection that's forcing the external hard drive to spin and spin?

[sandbagger]

most likely it's iTunes that's grabbing your drive. iTunes likes to have process running so it can do things like recognize an iPod when you plug it in. That will make the system think the disk is "in use" and balk when you try to eject. Apple tries to make it's products as seamless as possible for the user. That's good news prolly 90% of the time but can be annoying when you want to do some of the "custom" variety.

I've never been a fan of loading apps on external drives; better to load the app locally and point to an external drive for the data. I would uninstall iTunes and re-install on the C drive. I believe the settings you want are in the preferences, but I'm on a Mac and not doing the external thing for iTunes.

you can search the web and turn up several solutions. this one looked pretty good.

http://community.devexpress.com/blog...nal-drive.aspx

[jgleason]

What Art said.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

Thanks, I'll give it a whirl and hope I don't mess up the library during the software reload.

[Tool Guy - Kg]

Well, I took my best crack at it......

I've removed iTunes from the external hard drive, then installed it on the internal C drive as planned. And I thought I followed all the directions that were given on Art's link, but something didn't connect. iTunes doesn't see the library that's staring at it in front of its nose. It's blind as a bat.

I'm so frustrated with iTunes with the way they've made it very difficult for the average person to move their own library around. I've loading and unloaded iTunes at least 8 times since I got this iPod. Serious PITA!