Looking for Opinions/suggestions

[iMark]

I'll preface this post by warning that I am not a technical person.....so apologies if my question is well below the normally accepted level of expertise for this forum.....

I have a MacBook Pro Retina 15. I store a lot of music and photos on it. It's also used for home office stuff: docs, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.

I'm starting to get messages telling me my startup disk is full (or "almost full"). Is this due to the space being taken up by music files and photos?

It got me thinking about having some external storage and moving iTunes to an external drive that would be on my home network. Is that recommended? Would the music then be available to other devices on the network (my wife's iPad, for example)? Which external drive would be the most recommended?

I am using a Time Machine for back up and wireless printing.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Is Time Machine keeping automatic backups on your startup disk? If so, you may want to move them.

 

[Ledsteplin]

You sound fairly technical to me. I don't even currently have a working computer. I would think your music and photos would take some space, but that may not be the problem. It could be a number of things. But I'll leave that to the more technical members to discuss. I'm not as technical as you.


Sent from my ancient but trustworthy iPhone 5.

 

[iMark]

Is Time Machine keeping automatic backups on your startup disk? If so, you may want to move them.

Hmmm.....Don't know. I'll check. Does it do that as normal operation? How many do I need to keep? Where wouldl they move to?

 

[Just_Me_D]

Hmmm.....Don't know. I'll check. Does it do that as normal operation? How many do I need to keep? Where wouldl they move to?

It's possible but it depends on what you selected as the backup source when you first set it up. Anyway, some helpful information may be found via the following link.

Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support

 

[iMark]

Thanks.

So no benefit pushing iTunes off the MacBook and using an external drive?

 

[Just_Me_D]

Thanks.

So no benefit pushing iTunes off the MacBook and using an external drive?

If you're referring to the iTunes "folder", I doubt it, but I don't know how much music, photos you have or the amount of hard drive storage space your computer has.

 

[calebt]

I had the same problem I have a Mac Mini with a 250 Gig SSD as my start up Drive and 500 Gig SATA as a data drive. All my music, photos, data are now stored on the data drive. Just my music and photos are over 200 Gigs. I don't stream, but I'm sure it can be done. You would have to have your external drive portable if you want to bring you music and photos with you.

 

[iMark]

I'm revisitiing this again. There's some good suggestions here.

The portable drive is a good idea.

Does anyone have a good recommendation of a drive that would sit on my home tetwork, but would also be portable enough to take with me if/when needed?