Moving the collection as smoothly as possible?

Here's the deal. I've got a PC as my stationary computer, and my macbook for playing out live. All the songs are prepped on my PC and then transfered to the Macbook.

The folder structure in my colleciton is quite simple:
_albums
_acapellas
_instrumentals
_samples&loops
_2010
_2009
_2008
e.t.c

To avoid the 2 hour long copy procedure of the whole collection (1500 songs@18GB and 10'000 stripes/transients/converart) I try to remember which folders that recently had songs added to them and just choose those. However, this is stressing me out and I always feel like I "might" have forgotten some songs. That, and the merging of the coverart/transient/stripe folders. It also causes errors sometimes if a stripe is missing - since all songs are tempo locked traktor can't "rescan" the song at set the bpm again and I have to manually adjust some stuff.

What is the simplest method of transferring your collection to another computer? (Without deleting the whole content and copying everything all over again)

 

I use your method, and have over 43,000 tracks. It works for me but would be interested to hear if there is an easier way.

 

unless im missing the point i would just have a backup drive with everything on it which you can update as you add tracks to your main collection. Yes it will take a while the first time but then its done , then you just do it as you add tracks. Or is that totally not the idea?

 

Yes, that's the idea... but I have to sit and pick folders one by one to make sure that i don't re-copy stuff that's already there. It blows and it's really annoying. And every now and then I miss some coverart, stripes, transients or songs. The result being that when I'm rocking a crowd, all of a sudden i realize that song Y isn't available beacause i missed it for some reason =\

I want a friggin "clone collection to FILEPATH"-button.

 

Autonic,

You could try using something like ROBOCOPY on the PC. you can configure it to not to copy if the file is the same size/date, that way it only copies newer files and you don't have to worry where you put it as it copies all your sub directories if set

I regularly use it to copy my collection from the lappy disc to an external backup disk.....

Regards,

DJH

 

I found no solution for pc >mac or reverse. Talked to support about that tried some more, looks like hopeless case. With 2 pcs , ext HDD and Synctoy did updating everyday, never had any issue.
Will get myself second Mac instead since there seems to be impossible to do it any better way than as you do, manually, and this is too much for me.

 

Have you looked at Windows Live Sync? (Yes, it's available for Mac users as well)

Please see http://sync.live.com

This is a free Synchronization tool, available to both PC and Mac users.
Windows Live Sync for Mac adds support for Snow Leopard as well.

I've been using Windows Live Sync for over a year now, to keep my Traktor Library synchronized between my desktop PC and laptop. Bidirectional synchronization, automatic or on-demand sync can be configured. This really works like a charm.

Disclaimer: I haven't used it to sync between Mac and PC (as I'm a PC user), however as the binaries are available for Mac as well, I believe this should work. I'd kindly suggest to take a look at this solution. If you have any questions about Windows Live Sync, please feel free to touch base with me.

Thanks and kind regards,
GunBee.

 

Sounds interesting, specially that I had such good experience with synctoy. Already downloaded the Live sync will check and test it all later and report here. At last some hope....
Thank you so much for the link

 

What about Right Button on your playlist then Export while the Copy Tracks to Destination option is checked?
Syncback Free is also a good sync program.
Most of the time i use Total Commander, hard to master but it allows controlled copy (use the function Directory Synchronisation) it will detect what's in the source and not in the directory and vice and versa. It also can compares bunch of files and directories to see if they are identical according to the binary content, the date, etc.
It will then copy the needed files only from source to destination and/or from destination to source, you choose.

 

Unfortunatley it doesn't solve my problem.

The integrated backup option just copies all your tracks to the given directory with the .nml file. No coverart/stripes/transients =\

And it messes up my folder structure since it puts all the tracks in one folder.

 

Hi Autonic

I can think of 1 possibility: make sure your PC is up to date, and the folders are shared an accesible for the Mac.

Instal Chronosync for Mac, and Use that program to sync folders over the network.

If that does not work, you can use a windows program that does the same, and perhaps start your Mac up in Firewire mode.

Good luck.

 

F....g MS, will they ever get their sh... together? you type 20 times the stupid security sequences and in the end get apology from MS that there is server problem, I tried it in the morning, 12 h later same thing so I still cannot activate the program, maybe tomorrow........ or I put pc on Ebay, I am truly microshrott pissed.

 

@ Aviray : what program are you trying to activate?

If it is the Windows Live Sync program mentioned above, this does not require any activation - it is a free program.

Windows Live Sync (WLS) does require Authentication through a Windows Live-ID (WL-ID). This is necessary to authenticate across the multiple machines across a LAN or WAN network. If the problem relies in your Windows Live ID authentication, do a simple test by trying to log on to www.hotmail.com - if this works, then your Windows Live ID authentication should work across all WL-ID compliant tools, such as WLS.

Thanks and kind regards,
GunBee.

 

Yes the problem is with that Live ID. Well, just checked right now seems to work, so it was a problem with their server. Thanks will test it now.

 

Any luck? Does it work well? I'm also looking for a PC<>mac synchronization system...

 

use a external HD or Stick to store a) your tracks and b) your traktor settings folder and set the data location paths in both traktor installations to that device, assuming you don´t want to use the desktop and laptop at the same time.
I didn´t read the thread completely so i´m sorry if this is the answer to a question you didn´t ask

 

Chronosync doesn't want to copy the newly added mp3 files for some reason. It can overwrite modified files and such, but it has stopped to synchronize the new mp3 files.

I'll try a rebbot later.

 

Sounds like a permissions problem.

Disk Utility - > repair permissions.