Backing up my itunes library

Well incase my HD goes to **** or i get a new laptop can i spoy m itunes folder onto my external 160 gig hd? So incase i do need a new hd i can just but that stuff back into itunes and then tell it to authorize the computer to play the music and shows.

 

You already have the drive? easy.
option one- set up Time Machine
option 2- Go into the Music folder on your hard drive, and copy the folder titled "iTunes Music", then paste that onto the external.

 

and that folder even has my tv shows?

 

Yup. Theres a folder inside of that folder called "TV Shows".

 

yeah i got it. Thanks.

 

option 3: in itunes, click backup under the file menu. it will then back up to cd/dvd for you. then you can easily do incremental backups and restore from them easily.

 

I disagree. Much faster with a backup drive. All you have to do is click add to library, and it imports all the files.

 

take it one step further.

instead of just backing up your "iTunes Music" folder, just backup everything in the User/Music/iTunes folder, that way, all of your playlists, ratings, playcounts, etc. will also be backed up, if you get a new hard drive or new computer, even a PC, all you have to do is move that folder back to the correct directory, and fire up iTunes and you are ready to go.

it is way to much of a hassle to back up a large library of music on dvd's, and in this day in age an external HDD is a much more reliable solution quite honestly, DVDs might have a long shelf life, but people get new music very often, I back up my music once a week, sometimes more.

actually, one of the best habits people can get into is just backing up your entire "user" folder, which will include basically your entire existance on the computer if it is used properly besides the applications and specific system settings, which you shouldn't have really altered as your user folder has a library of preferences, etc. just for you, that way, whenever you get a new Mac or you have a failure, you can make sure to take the time to properly install applications, as applications are usually the cause of software and OS issues, then simply move back the contents of your user folder in very easy steps.

 

Yup I vouch for the above too.

Whenever I do a backup I just drop the entire 'Music' folder onto my hardrive. If you ever have to do a restore or re-install, you can just drop it's contents into the empty Music folder and everything will be good to go the first time you start iTunes.

I have the same backup method for 'Documents' and 'Pictures' and can't really see a use for Time Machine (for me that anyway: I don't deal with lots of docs that have incremental changes, the only editing I do is pictures and I back those up as soon as I finish working on them).