My wife's laptop is Windows 8.1 and she has 21GB free out of 1TB. I want to put her iTunes library (500GB) on an external hard drive. Is that possible? If so how because I have tried copying her photos (60GB) to the external hard drive but it won't do it because she only has 21GB free and it needs more space to copy before it will even start the paste process so I can just imagine what it will be like with the 500GB library.
selecting copy will not use up any more hard drive space, My advice to you is to use copy and then check to make sure that the pasted files are all right do not use cut and paste
You have to move the whole iTunes folder over to the drive. Then follow these directions, so that iTunes will find the location of where the folder was moved to. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203206 Specifically the part about starting iTunes in Safe Mode.
I stopped keeping my iTunes purchased items on my computer. When home, those albums that are not on my iPhone, I can play out of the cloud. Otherwise when on the go, I just play those items loaded on my iPhone.
Personally I would get a NAS that is capable of iTunes support. The Lenovo ix2-4 will do it. You can set it up in Raid 0, which gives you 2TB, or Raid 1, which will give you 1TB of storage. You can install up to 2TB units on that NAS, along with connect a USB pocket drive.
You can also get the Toshiba Canvio's pretty cheap these days. A 1TB will cost you $70, unless you get a good deal. Another suggestion is to use a SSD for storing the music on. It will load a lot quicker than using a Platter form drive.
I have a Seagate 2TB NAS external hard drive and I'll move iTunes to it as directed above. This will probably take 12-24 hours over our network. We have U-Verse 12-18 MBPS or whatever speed it is.
Would it be faster if I did this move USB 3.0 to USB 3.0? If so how do I get this Seagate to even show up as a USB drive? I've tried plugging a USB 3.0 cord in but it just won't show up that way.