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[lateboomer]

Hi,

Just want to ask the good tips on managing multiple external music file hard disks. I have several 2 TB hd which I swap to use. What is the good tips on import libraries from these multiple drives?

I mean if I plug in one drive, JRiver album list will still shows all available albums including albums from other HD which haven't been plugged in. This would be quite misleading is it not?

Should I configure JRiver to show only available albums based on what hd I plug in and dim the unavailable albums?

[blgentry]

JRiver isn't exactly designed with this in mind.  Plugging and unplugging drives makes part of the library unavailable.  I would encourage you to have enough space on one or two drives to hold your entire collection.  That way you won't be monkeying around swapping drives and trying to figure things out.

Should you decide to do ahead with your plan, you'll probably need to permanently assign drive letters to your various drives.  Otherwise, they will get different drive letters as you plug and unplug them, which will be very confusing for you and for JRiver MC.

You can probably use an expression in your views to filter out missing files.  I just played with one that seems to work with my collection:

Code: [Select]

[=ismissing()]=0
I put that into the "files to include" rule for a view and my missing files disappeared.

Good luck.

Brian.

[Arindelle]

Agree with Brian, its really not the best scenario. The price of drives has gone down, why not just buy a 4Tb drive and use the 2 drives you have for archives of your main backup  - I've blown out both my main drive and my backup at the same time once ... without my archive I would have been screwed).

You could investigate a hardware solution like a multiple disk dock like this I suppose http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual-Bay-Docking-Function-Tool-free/dp/B00N1KXE9K/ref=pd_sim_147_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=41gcOonhT-L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=15FNYHVG1A6JEVN9QQ5V

Otherwise you should make sure your import configuration is setup so it won't nuke half of your library. Probably safest to have 2 libraries, but still not a good idea to hot swap drives

[ferday]

I've been doing this (Travelling) and just assigned permanent drive letters in Windows (w:, x: and y:)
Then made 4 views, one only sees w, one only x, one only y, and one all 3 for full portable library.  You could just as easily configure by genre, or folder, or however you've organised the drives

Sorry guys, you're making this one too hard...a simple view config works great as long as you assign nice high drive letters in disk manager.  No need for expressions or complexity

[lateboomer]

Thank you guys. All your scenario presented are valid cases and cover all bases. It helps a lot.

[Arindelle]

Sorry guys, you're making this one too hard...a simple view config works great as long as you assign nice high drive letters in disk manager.  No need for expressions or complexity

No need to be sorry, your solution works for sure!  If I was travelling around a lot, that makes sense. Less so for my main system. I have had problems with docks being unplugged and unresponsive USB buses and things like that is all.  Just requires a little discipline. Also the update on external changes option in auto import ... I assume you have to have that off, or it will remove the non-loaded HD library entries, wouldn't it?