NAS drive for music library - how best to manage?

taipan442

I have quite a large (~12k tracks) library on my NAS drive. Currently it's sorted by the dreaded iTunes/Apple-Music "organize library". I don't have enough space on my laptop to hold all these files.

Although it does connect to Traktor using the iTunes link in the browser, it takes AGES to load (like 30-60 minutes).

1. is there a better way for the files to be organised rather than in folders for each artist/album?
2. If I go mobile, i.e. off the network and therefore not connected to the NAS drive, how would you recommend I create a mobile 'crate' of say 50 tracks to take around with me?

Thanks!

Patch

I use iTunes exclusively. I don't trust it to do ANY organising, except Smart Playlists based on my tags.

I keep all my music files in a single folder. I create a new folder inside that folder whenever I am importing new music into iTunes. I do this once a month at least, and just name the folder [Year] [Month]. So it might look like 2024 06 (This year, and month of June). If I import more music in June, I'd create a new folder called 2024 06 02.

Heisenberg

1. Genre, artist, album, sounds reasonable. This is the best way to manage it. The rest is then taken over by media players and co e.g. Plex, Traktor etc.
2. II exported my favorite playlist and saved it separately on my storage so that I still have access but Plex doesn't scan this folder. The folder is small enough that I can even carry it with me on my smartphone.

Overall, I can only recommend that you install enough storage so that you have your music directly on the device.

What about backups? I hope your network storage isn't the only copy of your data?

taipan442

Thanks for the feedback, both.

It sounds like the headline is that I need to un-organise files into one folder.

@Heisenberg there's no way I want all the music on my device, just when I create a playlist to have a copy of it in Traktor that sits locally (in the way rekordbox exports to usb). Is there a good way to do this so I don't lose Traktor stripes/hotcues etc?

Backups: yeah scheduled to another device

Heisenberg

I haven't worked with it that way yet, maybe the relocate function will help, but others would have to say something about that.

But then you would also have duplicates in the traktor library, not that that would lead to complications. ;)