Click Login Items, and drag the NAS volume to that list. One tip for this scenario: when the NAS is mounted in the Finder, open System Preferences > Users & Groups, and click your account. When the copy is finished, you can play music, watch movies, and listen to podcasts from your copy of iTunes as if the content was on your Mac. This may mean allowing the copy to run overnight. This may take a while, depending on how many files you have, and how fast your network is.

This tells iTunes to copy all the media files currently on your Mac to the new location. Choose File > Library > Organize Library, and check Consolidate files.

Navigate to the folder you created in step 2 and click Open, and then click OK.Ĭhange the location of your iTunes Media folder in the iTunes preferences.

In the iTunes Media folder location section, click Change.

Launch iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences, and then click Advanced.

Create a new folder on the NAS call it iTunes, or something similar.

Ensure that the NAS is mounted in the Finder.

Back up all your files because accidents happen.

If you want to move just the media files, do the following: This means that any computer in your house can stream your media files, without the Mac whose library is stored on the NAS running. The M圜loud, like some other NAS devices, also has an iTunes server feature, which lets you stream music from the device to a computer running iTunes or to an Apple TV. Many NAS devices support Time Machine backups, so if you want a device for this purpose, check its specs. I use one of the hard drives on my NAS for my MacBook’s iTunes library, and the other for Time Machine backups. If you’re going to choose a NAS to store your iTunes library, first consider what other way you can use the device. (The M圜loud is also available in versions with drives, with capacities from 4TB to 10TB.) This two-bay device is available without drives, selling for around $159, and it allowed me to use two 2TB hard drives I had in a closet, having upgraded another storage device to 4TB drives. Remember that if you get a simple NAS with a single drive, you still need to consider adding an additional external hard drive to back up the files on the NAS itself.

Depending on your needs, you may spend a couple hundred dollars for a simple NAS without drives (you may have some hard drives you can recycle), or much more for a unit with five drives and RAID capabilities. There is a plethora of NAS devices available, from simple, single-drive units to larger, multi-drive RAID-capable storage devices.

Mac mini as a nas