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[rsg]

So, I never thought I would really ever fill up my 4TB external drive, but lo and behold it's kinda happening (with flac music files). I'm thinking of off-loading a whole bunch of albums on to another drive and then deleting them from my main library. They are songs I don't really play often but would like to keep on hand. Here's the question. How do I create a new library so that when the second external drive (let's call it the Archived Music Drive) is connected, all the albums/tracks show up in their own separate library, created for them alone?

[ferday]

you can create another library (file > library manager).  i have created portable libraries with external drives, another bonus is they are OS agnostic.  you would then have to load the library after connecting the drive.

you cannot show 2 libraries at one time, so you would only be able to browse one or the other. 

why not just create three copies of your main views - one which sees all the files, one that sees the 4TB and one that sees the other drive?  this way you could browse everything when the other drive was connected

JRiver has a very powerful viewing system and it's rare that you would actually want two libraries for one media type

[rsg]

you can create another library (file > library manager).  i have created portable libraries with external drives, another bonus is they are OS agnostic.  you would then have to load the library after connecting the drive.

Having a problem here. The files that I want on the second external drive have all been copied over. Now I want to create a library for them. File > library manager doesn't allow me to name the path to those files (M:\). It says I need to 'select an empty directory.' What am I missing here?

Basically, I have one library for one external drive, and that is up and running as 'Main Library'. Now that I have two external drives, how do I create a new library for the second drive? I am being prompted to 'add a new library' but it seems to me that I should 'create a new library.'

[dtc]

The library is different than the media files. The library is where JRiver stores its information, like views, fields etc. When you ADD a new library, you need to create it in a new folder and then import the media files with Auto Import or Tools - Import...  The new library will not have any of the views or other customizations you have made. Also, the only tag values will be the ones stored in the files.   You may want to copy tags from the library to the files before you delete them from the original library and import them into the new library.

Create a backup of your library before you start doing all of this.

And, think about ferday's recommendation. Two libraries are harder to manage and to use. Once they are in a second library, you will probably hardly ever go back to them.

[rsg]

And, think about ferday's recommendation. Two libraries are harder to manage and to use. Once they are in a second library, you will probably hardly ever go back to them.

Well, I am just archiving them, so I won't probably go back to these files very often. Point is...I just want two separate libraries based on two separate external drives. And, anyway, I won't keep the second (archive) drive connected. I will stick it in a drawer and get it out if I feel like it...and hope that, when I connect the computer, there's a library option there for playing it. Yes, it'll be a second library, rarely accessed, but there if I want....

[Dawgincontrol]

In Standard View, Audio>Files, under location, you could just select the drive you want to look at.  This might help. 

Maybe there is a way to play off of that.

[rsg]

In Standard View, Audio>Files, under location, you could just select the drive you want to look at.  This might help. 

Maybe there is a way to play off of that.

Yes, I wondered about that, but the external drive does not show up there. But it does appear in 'Devices and Drives.' Strange right?

[dtc]

Sorry to repeat, but if you are considering using Drives to sort files, you can use views to do the same thing. Just create two views, say Albums - C Drive and Albums - L Drive or C - Albums and L - Albums. Each view will contain just the albums you want. You could also put a rule in each view that limits the view to  just that specific drive. It does not matter if the L Drive is hooked up or not.  It will only matter if you actually call up that view.  That seems easier than recreating and managing all your settings in two different libraries. But that is up to you.

[rsg]

Sorry to repeat, but if you are considering using Drives to sort files, you can use views to do the same thing. Just create two views, say Albums - C Drive and Albums - L Drive or C - Albums and L - Albums. Each view will contain just the albums you want. You could also put a rule in each view that limits the view to  just that specific drive. It does not matter if the L Drive is hooked up or not.  It will only matter if you actually call up that view.  That seems easier than recreating and managing all your settings in two different libraries. But that is up to you.

Yes, thanks to your comments, and those of others, I realize I should be using Views (not separate libraries) to enable MC to look at two different drives. Certainly makes sense. I'm just not sure how to do that, and I've been looking at the wiki. If you don't mind, could you explain how to "Just create two views...". Thanks. Appreciate it.

[dtc]

To create a view you can right click on Audio and select Add Library View and select the type of view (like Album) to create. The name of the new view should be unique. If you have customized a view and want to make a copy of that view, you can select that view, right click, Customize View, Saved Views and save the view under a new name. Then when you Add Library View, you can select that saved view and go on from their.

To add a rule to look at a specific drive, right click on the View, select Customize View and then Set Rules for Display and put in the rule Filename (Path)  Contains  L:  or whatever disk you want. Note it is not specifically set up for drives, just Filename, so you have to put in the L: yourself. It will then only display media files from that drive.

You can repeat the process to create as many views as you want. I have more than 20 views - 5 for various classic, 2 for jazz, several for rock - which let me get to a particular genre easily. I also have one just for the vinyl that I have digitized, one for just hi-rez, one for DSD and so on.  You do not have to go that far, but once you create some, you will see how useful they are.

I would make a library backup (File - Library - Back Up Library) before trying this - just in case.

Give it a try and ask if you need help.

[rsg]

OK DTC: You are brilliant. It works. I now have a separate view for all the files on the archived (2nd) drive. I have used MC for a number of years, but never changed a view, so I was unsure of the correct procedure. Now that you have explained it, I will no doubt add others. That is a really great feature of the program.

[dtc]

Great. There are so many great features in MC.

[David Sydney]

Personally - and not completely on topic I know - I would set up a RAID array instead of discrete drives. Most motherboards have this feature in built. Then you can continue to expand the drive size without messing with the drive letter or the data underneath. I have a RAID 5 with 4 HD, when it comes time I can add two more and dynamically expand the size of the apparent drive...

[MikeO]

Just a suggestion , why not add a Custom Tag [Core Library] = 1 or 0 or the like and set the old stuff to 0 , new stuff = 1

Then set up a views with a Rule [Core Library] = 1 for your main stuff and =0 for your old stuff.

MC will handle that number of files (ie 4Tb) happily, mines around 5 Audio, 3 Video currently

You lose nothing and have no irritable library switching

[rsg]

To create a view you can right click on Audio and select Add Library View and select the type of view (like Album) to create. The name of the new view should be unique. If you have customized a view and want to make a copy of that view, you can select that view, right click, Customize View, Saved Views and save the view under a new name. Then when you Add Library View, you can select that saved view and go on from their.

To add a rule to look at a specific drive, right click on the View, select Customize View and then Set Rules for Display and put in the rule Filename (Path)  Contains  L:  or whatever disk you want. Note it is not specifically set up for drives, just Filename, so you have to put in the L: yourself. It will then only display media files from that drive.

The only thing I'm missing is this: In the tree, there is a little arrow to the left of every artist, or album, or genre etc. which will open up that particular item, For instance, it opens up a list of albums in the library by that artist. Any new View that I have created is missing that arrow/function.

[dtc]

The only thing I'm missing is this: In the tree, there is a little arrow to the left of every artist, or album, or genre etc. which will open up that particular item, For instance, it opens up a list of albums in the library by that artist. Any new View that I have created is missing that arrow/function.

Right click on the view, select Customize View and check Support Tree Browsing

[rsg]

Right click on the view, select Customize View and check Support Tree Browsing

I did that, but no luck...

[dtc]

For me, the little arrow appears as soon as I check the box and disappears as soon as I unclick, even if I do not hit OK. If yours does not, I am not sure why.

[rsg]

For me, the little arrow appears as soon as I check the box and disappears as soon as I unclick, even if I do not hit OK. If yours does not, I am not sure why.

OK...I'm not talking about Audio>Artists but the next level down in the tree, such as Audio>Artists>Led Zeppelin. At this level there is an arrow next to 'Artists' and an arrow next to 'Led Zeppelin' for all the standard Views, but for the ones I have created there is only the arrow at the 'Artists' level.

[dtc]

Do you have Artist and Album listed for categories?

[rsg]

Do you have Artist and Album listed for categories?

No, just 'Album Artist'.

[dtc]

Add album.

Look at the views that work as you want and make sure everything is the same.

[rsg]

Do you have Artist and Album listed for categories?

I changed it to 'Album Artist' and 'Artist' (and they have to be in that order)...and it works! I did spend a lot of time rejigging that whole 'Customize...' option, but I never stumbled on the fact that it needs both 'Album Artist' and 'Artist' in the right order.

So, once again you have been extremely helpful. Thank you!

[dtc]

Glad it worked. The category list can be tricky.