Dedicated drive or (NAS) Setup

Using a shared network drive for iTunes is a good way to have multiple computers share a common music library. However, some care should be used to get the best experience out of iTunes and SuperSync.

Two types of users can share music from the shared drive. At least one master library user is needed for full NAS access by both user types.

Master Library Users have their main iTunes library pointing to a shared network drive.

Subset Library Users have a subset of the Master library on their computer and access the master library--adding music or getting music from the library. This type of user is good for laptop users.

Master Library User Setup

To begin, you'll need to have a network drive that is accessible by all machines that you want to have complete access to the master library. We recommend using a NAS that has AFP and/or SMB support. The drive should automatically connect on reboot (See final notes below if it doesn't).

In iTunes, set the library location to point to the directory on the NAS where you have your media library. To do this, go to iTunes, Edit Preferences, click on the Advanced tab, then change the "iTunes Music Folder" location. In the screen image below, we have the NAS mapped to the "G:\" drive, however on a Mac it can be a network url or other mapped network location.

iTunes screenshot

If you have your library pointing to your default music directory, you may need to move the content to the new location. Warning: once you change the location of your library, moving the tracks to the new drive location may cause you to lose your playlists, ratings, playcounts, and other iTunes specific meta data.

Once this is complete, run SuperSync and go to File: Local Library Info. Verify that Kind is set to iTunes and Music Directory is set to the location of your network drive and directory.

Next, you may want to do a File: "Local Library Rescan". Verify the results and make any recommended changes you wish.

You can repeat this process on multiple computers around the office or house.

At this point, the only problem is that when new music that is added to the NAS (or removed) those changes may not show up in all the other user's iTunes. Any time music is added or removed to/from the NAS a Rescan Local Library will be needed on each computer that is running as a master user and has an out of date iTunes. The rescan feature can be run manually as needed or can be scheduled to run periodically.

One important note: If you have multiple machines connected to the same network drive as described above, you should not use SuperSync to do a network connection between the two SuperSync's. This is because both machines are pointing to the same drive location. This can cause serious duplication errors. Instead, local rescans should be used to find new music added to the network drive. You can still use SuperSync to connect to a remote library that points to a completely different networked SuperSync library, or connect to another disk drive or iPod.

Subset Library Users

Having a subset of the music from the master is ideal for users who don't want to have all the music from the NAS on their computer. If you've got a laptop, you almost certainly want to set your library up as a subset of the master.

Running iTunes as a subset of the master library requires no additional setup on iTunes. iTunes should have your library location in the default location or somewhere on a local hard drive.

Next step is to load SuperSync and make sure that your local library type is set to iTunes and your library location is correct from the File: Local Library Info... dialog.

To connect to the NAS drive, there are two ways. Connect to Remote Networked SuperSync library, or set the remote library up as a disk-based Remote library.

The recommended way is to connect to another remote networked SuperSync on the LAN that is set up as a master user. (See above!) This allows you to quickly connect to the master library and access iTunes specific information, including playlists, ratings, and video information. To connect to a master library, go to the Remote->Connect to a LAN Server menu. If you need to, you can also connect to the server by entering the IP address of the server into the Connect to Server... dialog. The remote machine you are connecting to must be running the SuperSync server and firewalls may need to be modified to allow SuperSync traffic.

The second method of accessing the music on the NAS is to set the remote library as a disk share under the Remote->Configure Remote Library... dialog.. Point SuperSync to the location of your NAS media directory. Clicking Finish will import the tracks from the NAS into SuperSync. From there, tracks can be added to your library or uploaded to the NAS using the standard synchronization techniques.

Final Thoughts

One question we get a lot: Can I have set up a computer with both types of libraries--so that I have a full time connection to my music when I'm at home, but also have a subset of music for when I take my laptop out of the house? The answer is.. not really! You could use iTunes support for multiple libraries... but you're on your own on that one. We'd like to hear from you if you have any other stories or recommendations.

One tip we can share is that sometimes when you reboot a computer, the network share is offline. When you start iTunes with it pointing to the offline directory, iTunes won't be able to find your music. To prevent this, you can create an alias (or Windows shortcut) of your iTunes application, save it somewhere on the network drive, then use that to start your application. If your hard drive is offline, your Mac or PC should prompt you to connect the drive!