Q: I use OS X version 10.4.11 on a G4 laptop (Power PC) Mac. If I move my iTunes library to an external hard drive, can I burn a music CD (using my Mac’s internal CD burner) of files which exist on the external drive? In other words, I need to burn CD’s from an iTunes library that exists on an external (USB interface) hard drive. Can I do it?
– Jim
A: The short answer is yes. iTunes doesn’t really care where your media files are stored; it treats every location equally in that regard.
The only possible problem is if you have a really slow external hard drive, such as an older drive with a USB 1.1 interface. In this case, it’s possible that the data transfer from the external hard drive may not be fast enough for the CD burning process, which might result in errors during the burn. Even in this situation, however, you could simply slow down your burning speed to allow the hard drive transfers to keep up just by selecting a lower “Preferred Speed” in the dialog box that appears when burning a CD.
This would be a pretty rare problem, however, as in most cases even older USB 1.1 hard drives should be able to keep up with normal CD burning speeds, particularly with modern CD-R drives.