Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files. So I need to split
the library between two USB sticks. With robocopy, that shouldn't be
hard: before I knew about the 9999-file limit, robocopy transferred
all 70 GB of my iTunes library to a USB stick in about 4 minutes.
But I'm having trouble setting up the split. I can't list the
directories on the robocopy command line, because there would be
hundreds of them. (I want to use robocopy because I want to automate
updates to the USB sticks when I add or update files and folders in
iTunes.)
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files.
On Sat, 4 Feb 2023 16:41:09 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files. So I need to split
the library between two USB sticks. With robocopy, that shouldn't be
hard: before I knew about the 9999-file limit, robocopy transferred
all 70 GB of my iTunes library to a USB stick in about 4 minutes.
But I'm having trouble setting up the split. I can't list the
directories on the robocopy command line, because there would be
hundreds of them. (I want to use robocopy because I want to automate >updates to the USB sticks when I add or update files and folders in >iTunes.)
In the music folder on your PC, I would create two new folders,
_Nonclassical and _Classical. Now populate those two folders with your
music, making sure each folder stays below 9999 files. Lastly, copy each
of those two folders to its own USB stick, or if you don't like copying
the parent folder, simply copy the contents of each folder to its own
USB stick.
If you don't want to make those kinds of changes to your main music
folder, just make a copy first and then work from that.
Robocopy to keep everything updated should be a snap after that.
On 2023-02-05 01:41, Stan Brown wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files.
There is another possibility: create an index file (something.m3u) of
the audios and put it on the stick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
Then, in your car player point it to play the index file. I have the
hunch (not verified yet) that this way the car player doesn't need to
index itself the files (or can be ignored). I am using this method in my
car, but I really do not know if I have reached song 9999 + 1 yet or not :-D
Sure, the car try to index the thumbdrive every time I start the car,
but it keeps playing the list I gave it.
(I used this method initially for a different reason: to control the
order in which the songs are played.)
I really, really don't like having duplicates (apart from backups),
because it means whenever I change one copy I must manually change
the other. At best it's extra work; at worst I thumb-fingeredly make different changes to the two.
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 03:21:03 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-02-05 01:41, Stan Brown wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files.
There is another possibility: create an index file (something.m3u) of
the audios and put it on the stick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
Then, in your car player point it to play the index file. I have the
hunch (not verified yet) that this way the car player doesn't need to
index itself the files (or can be ignored). I am using this method in my
car, but I really do not know if I have reached song 9999 + 1 yet or not :-D >>
Sure, the car try to index the thumbdrive every time I start the car,
but it keeps playing the list I gave it.
(I used this method initially for a different reason: to control the
order in which the songs are played.)
This is intriguing. I've read the article, and it doesn't mention
cars,
so it's good to know that you've successfully used this in your
car. If I could violate the 9999-file limit, that would definitely
solve my problem and I could then use a single robocopy command. I'll
try that and report back.
Have you experimented with multiple playlists at all? My car will
interact with playlists when I connect an iPod through the USB port,
but I didn't think playlists were possible when using a USB thumb
drive.
(Why don't I just use the iPod, then? The car gets pretty hot when
parked, and I don't want to degrade the battery. Also there's the
small but nonzero chance of dropping the iPod when transferring it
many times between car and house. Even in its protective case, I
wouldn't want to drop it on concrete.)
On Sun, 05 Feb 2023 01:47:19 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 4 Feb 2023 16:41:09 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files. So I need to split
the library between two USB sticks. With robocopy, that shouldn't be
hard: before I knew about the 9999-file limit, robocopy transferred
all 70 GB of my iTunes library to a USB stick in about 4 minutes.
But I'm having trouble setting up the split. I can't list the
directories on the robocopy command line, because there would be
hundreds of them. (I want to use robocopy because I want to automate
updates to the USB sticks when I add or update files and folders in
iTunes.)
In the music folder on your PC, I would create two new folders,
_Nonclassical and _Classical. Now populate those two folders with your
music, making sure each folder stays below 9999 files. Lastly, copy each
of those two folders to its own USB stick, or if you don't like copying
the parent folder, simply copy the contents of each folder to its own
USB stick.
If you don't want to make those kinds of changes to your main music
folder, just make a copy first and then work from that.
Robocopy to keep everything updated should be a snap after that.
Thanks for the suggestion.
iTunes is set to manage the library, because some bad experiences a
few years back showed me that iTunes gets cranky if I manage the
files in the library. So to follow your suggestion I would need to
make a second copy of all 70 GB, outside of iTunes.
I really, really don't like having duplicates (apart from backups),
because it means whenever I change one copy I must manually change
the other. At best it's extra work; at worst I thumb-fingeredly make >different changes to the two.
This isn't just a theoretical problem. I add music fairly often, and
I change existing files though less often: to change ratings, add
lyrics, correct a year or a misspelling, and so forth.
If there were an automated way to keep the original and the split
folders in sync, that objection would disappear. But if there were an >automated method, then I could just use it to populate the two USB
sticks. :-)
On 2023-02-05 01:41, Stan Brown wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files.
There is another possibility: create an index file (something.m3u) of
the audios and put it on the stick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
Then, in your car player point it to play the index file. I have the
hunch (not verified yet) that this way the car player doesn't need to
index itself the files (or can be ignored). I am using this method in my
car, but I really do not know if I have reached song 9999 + 1 yet or not :-D
Sure, the car try to index the thumbdrive every time I start the car,
but it keeps playing the list I gave it.
For the "automated way to keep things in sync" problem, there are
multiple free file sync programs, or since you already have access to Robocopy, you could use that, with a single button push to launch with appropriate arguments, to keep the folders in sync with the master.
On 2/5/2023 11:07 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
I really, really don't like having duplicates (apart from backups),
because it means whenever I change one copy I must manually change
the other. At best it's extra work; at worst I thumb-fingeredly make different changes to the two.
I don't want to turn this into a computer science project,
but if you use hardlinks for the files, you have one set
of data clusters and two file handles.
dir1/beegees.mp3 ---
\___ Hardlinked
/
dir2/beegees.mp3 ---
If you have a new version of beegee.mp3, if you copy it
into dir2, the data content of the dir1 pointer automatically
matches.
Say dir1 is the populated folder, you have just
created dir2 which is empty. This should cause
beegees.mp3 to appear in dir2.
mklink /?
MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target
cd directory_above_dir1_and_dir2
mklink /h dir2/beegees.mp3 dir1/beegees.mp3
The two copies of beegees.mp3 are equal in every
respect. Only deleting both of them, frees up
the disk space. Either one can be deleted without
upsetting the other.
But saving new content to one of them, makes that
new content appear on the other one magically.
Any time a new filename is added to dir1, you will need
to make the hardlink to dir2, to continue your
directory discipline.
The purpose of the hardlink, is to ensure the content
is the same, just by updating one of the files.
Hardlinks must be on the same physical volume and partition.
Symbolic links (junctions?) can be used when using two
different drives, but then, the discipline of using
the two folders is entirely different. With symbolic links,
one directory is the master.
*******
While you can hardlink dir1 to dir2, yes, files appear
magically in the second folder (don't need to hardlink at
the file level), but deleting the appearance
of a file in either folder, deletes it from the partner folder.
With symbolic links (junctions?), the relationship is even
more lopsided and perhaps, not that useful. A small benefit
of a symbolic link, is it can go between two hard drives.
*******
When Robocopy copies a hardlink file, it seems to make an
ordinary file of it, at the destination.
Macrium properly handles these things, taking no extra space
by accident. Macrium copies at the cluster level, as well as
keeping file indexes. Since beegee.mp3 only has one set
of clusters and not two sets, only one set of clusters
is needed to back it up.
These weird file system features, do not integrate well,
and cause utility writers to pull their hair out. The
guy who wrote hashdeep64 for example, he had to add like
a dozen command line options, to disable traversal or the
poking of "features". For example, the file system can
have "sockets", and if you attempt to read a socket left
behind by the OS, your application "stalls on the read".
Comedy ensues (hashdeep run never finishes). This means
the author of Robocopy, also had a shitload of issues to
confront. This is a downside of larding up a filesystem
design with "crap".
Even File Explorer does not handle hardlinks properly, in
the sense that any Properties dialog may display incorrect
storage size information, about how much space a section
of file tree is taking. Only the pie chart for the entire
C: is accurate (and the fools even managed to break that
when releasing Windows 11). I think the bug in W11 was
corrected, but I have not verified this (yet again).
Paul
On Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:11:50 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
For the "automated way to keep things in sync" problem, there are
multiple free file sync programs, or since you already have access to
Robocopy, you could use that, with a single button push to launch with
appropriate arguments, to keep the folders in sync with the master.
Did you miss the post where I described the issue in detail? If I
need to split the iTunes library into two USB sticks, that means
specifying 275 robocopy commands, because there are 275 top-level
folders under Music in my iTunes library.
I had hopes of a single robocopy command, but my car has a hard limit
of 9999 files and Carlos's *.M3U technique doesn't seem to be a
viable workaround for that.
On Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:11:50 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
For the "automated way to keep things in sync" problem, there are
multiple free file sync programs, or since you already have access to
Robocopy, you could use that, with a single button push to launch with
appropriate arguments, to keep the folders in sync with the master.
Did you miss the post where I described the issue in detail? If I
need to split the iTunes library into two USB sticks, that means
specifying 275 robocopy commands, because there are 275 top-level
folders under Music in my iTunes library.
On 2/5/2023 10:15 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:11:50 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
For the "automated way to keep things in sync" problem, there are
multiple free file sync programs, or since you already have access to
Robocopy, you could use that, with a single button push to launch with
appropriate arguments, to keep the folders in sync with the master.
Did you miss the post where I described the issue in detail? If I
need to split the iTunes library into two USB sticks, that means
specifying 275 robocopy commands, because there are 275 top-level
folders under Music in my iTunes library.
I had hopes of a single robocopy command, but my car has a hard limit
of 9999 files and Carlos's *.M3U technique doesn't seem to be a
viable workaround for that.
make a batch using FOR to feed the 275 Robocopy commands
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 19:15:56 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
Did you miss the post where I described the issue in detail? If I
need to split the iTunes library into two USB sticks, that means
specifying 275 robocopy commands, because there are 275 top-level
folders under Music in my iTunes library.
I guess I don't understand why you'd need more than two Robocopy
commands but never mind me. I'm sure I'm bringing in more of how I'd do
it and not enough of how you'd do it.
On Sun, 05 Feb 2023 22:41:20 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 19:15:56 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
Did you miss the post where I described the issue in detail? If I
need to split the iTunes library into two USB sticks, that means
specifying 275 robocopy commands, because there are 275 top-level
folders under Music in my iTunes library.
I guess I don't understand why you'd need more than two Robocopy
commands but never mind me. I'm sure I'm bringing in more of how I'd do
it and not enough of how you'd do it.
Do you know how to specify multiple source directories in a robocopy
command? I surely don't.
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 03:21:03 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-02-05 01:41, Stan Brown wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music
library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files.
There is another possibility: create an index file (something.m3u) of
the audios and put it on the stick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
Then, in your car player point it to play the index file. I have the
hunch (not verified yet) that this way the car player doesn't need to
index itself the files (or can be ignored). I am using this method in my
car, but I really do not know if I have reached song 9999 + 1 yet or not :-D >>
Sure, the car try to index the thumbdrive every time I start the car,
but it keeps playing the list I gave it.
Does the M3U need to be in the root directory?
I had 10,000+ files on
the USB stick and in the M3U file, which was in the Music folder. Nonetheless, the car took 15 minutes or so to index everything (same
as before I had the M3U file), and stopped at the 9999th file. (That
was midway in the V's, and there were no W, X, Y, or Z available in
Browse.)
I moved the M3U file to the root folder, changing all the relative
paths accordingly, but when I started up the car it started in on
doing its own indexing. I didn't feel like sitting in the garage for
15-20 minutes.
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 22:05:18 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Do you know how to specify multiple source directories in a robocopy >command? I surely don't.
I was thinking you'd split those 275 folders roughly evenly into two new folders, so that there would be only two top level folders under Music
in your iTunes library. I don't have or use iTunes, though, so I don't
know anything about having it reindex your Music library so that it
learns about the two new folders.
On Mon, 06 Feb 2023 02:20:28 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:<snip>
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 22:05:18 -0800, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Do you know how to specify multiple source directories in a robocopy
command? I surely don't.
I was thinking you'd split those 275 folders roughly evenly into two new
folders, so that there would be only two top level folders under Music
in your iTunes library. I don't have or use iTunes, though, so I don't
know anything about having it reindex your Music library so that it
learns about the two new folders.
You didn't exactly ask, but you might be interested:
iTunes library structure, at least with the Windows version of
iTunes, is top-level folders Audiobooks, Movies, Music, and others
that don't concern us, under the main library folder. BTW, audiobooks
can be *.m4a, in which case they go under Music instead of
Audiobooks.
On Sun, 5 Feb 2023 03:21:03 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-02-05 01:41, Stan Brown wrote:
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I want to put my iTunes music library on a USB stick, but my car will accept only 9999 files on a
USB stick and simply ignores any additional files.
There is another possibility: create an index file (something.m3u) of
the audios and put it on the stick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
Then, in your car player point it to play the index file. I have the
hunch (not verified yet) that this way the car player doesn't need to
index itself the files (or can be ignored). I am using this method in my car, but I really do not know if I have reached song 9999 + 1 yet or not :-D
Sure, the car try to index the thumbdrive every time I start the car,
but it keeps playing the list I gave it.
Does the M3U need to be in the root directory?
I had hopes of a single robocopy command, but my car has a hard limitmake a batch using FOR to feed the 275 Robocopy commands
of 9999 files and Carlos's *.M3U technique doesn't seem to be a
viable workaround for that.
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