How to Back Up iTunes to External Hard Drive

Be it an Apple Ipad, Apple iPhone, Apple iPod or Apple iPod touch, all the media management tasks, device maintenance tasks and even activation can be mediated through the Apple iTunes application. It is the default program for media management on all devices launched by Apple Computers. For a music lover, the most sacred possession is his or her music collection, which is normally maintained in the form of Apple iTunes library. It's necessary that your songs, videos and movies stored in the iTunes library be backed up elsewhere. The backup ensures that in case of a hard drive crash or virus attack on your computer, your precious music collection is safeguarded.

With digital data storage devices like external hard drives and USB flash drives, it's easy to store and back up data. An external hard drive is a more dependable backup device compared to DVDs as they have very limited life spans. Let us see how to back up iTunes library to external hard drives easily. After reading this article, you will be able to back up your iTunes library in a matter of minutes and a few mouse clicks!

Backing up Data From iTunes to External Hard Drive On a Mac

First step of course is to connect the external hard drive with your Mac, using an appropriate connection cable for data transfer. Next step is ensuring that all your music is stored in a single folder and locating that folder.

To ensure that the entire iTunes library is stored in a single folder, open iTunes application and go to 'iTunes > Preferences'. Of the several tabs you see in the preferences windows, click on the 'Advanced' tab. Ensure that the check box, with the caption - 'Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder when adding to library' is checked. Also check out the iTunes media folder location provided in a box at the top. (This folder's location is '/Users/username/Music' on a Mac).

Click on 'Ok' to save the changes. Once this option is selected, all your existing iTunes library collection will be copied to that folder. The last step is the easiest. Open the iTunes media folder location and copy or drag and drop the entire folder to your external hard drive volume. With that, you have finished backing up iTunes to external hard drive.

Back up Data From iTunes to External Hard Drive On a Windows Machine

The procedure for backing up iTunes to external hard drive on Windows is similar to what I described above for Mac. Connect your external hard drive through a USB cable to your computer. Open iTunes and go to 'Edit > Preferences > Advanced' and the check box specifying the instruction - 'Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder' is checked.

Note the location of the media folder specified in the box above (The file location is usually - '\Users\username\My Music\' by default on Windows Vista and Windows 7). On closing the window, iTunes will transfer music to the specified folder. The last step is to simply locate the folder and copy-paste it to the external hard drive!

Hope these clear guidelines explaining how to back up iTunes to external hard drive were easy to follow. All you have to do is locate the right folder which hold the entire media library and copy-paste it in your external hard drive. It is a good idea to back up all your music to your external hard drive periodically as you purchase new music via iTunes. That way, you don't have to worry about a hard drive crash erasing your stored music!