Going to rip 2000 cds. Which software?

I have ripped almost 1000 CDs using iTunes on my MacBook Pro.  It has worked great, however, now I need to transfer the files to an external hard drive.  Does anyone have any advice about doing this?  I think I need to reformat the drive so that it keeps the backups in a separate place from my music files, yes??  I copied a couple of articles about it, but I am a little confused over how to proceed.  I also have no idea about how to find the files on that drive afterwards - or is this not an issue??  

Lear - I have fumbled around learning how to do this myself (changing the location of my iTunes ripped CDs from computer to external hard drive). Search the internet and Apple support and see what the experts advise. It might be no harder than dragging the ENTIRE iTunes folder over to your ext. hard drive (I still have iTunes on my computer but do not use it...day to day). Given the number of files you will be moving, this might take some time to complete. Once iTunes is on your hard drive, when you open iTunes to play music, you will have to tell iTunes the new location of the library. You will want to direct it to a file on your hard drive in iTunes that has the .itl extension...That’s dot-eye-tea-el (just in case characters are not completely legible). I direct iTunes to the appropriate library by holding down the Option key while clicking the iTunes icon. This should open a pop up that says, "Choose Library". Select the highlighted choose library button. This will open Finder. In Finder locate and click on your hard drive which should be listed. In the iTunes folder on your hard drive you should be able to find a file called, "iTunes Library.itl". Click on it and then click on "Open" in the bottom right of the screen to complete this selection. iTunes should now access the music files on your hard drive. I use BitPerfect rather than Audirvana or JRiver and I have to tell that where the music is located. When I start BitPerfect it will ask two things. First step is to direct it to the .xml file in the iTunes folder on your hard drive (find and click on this then click Select or Open bottom right). Second is to direct it to the actual music library on the hard drive. I do this by clicking on "Music" in the iTunes media folder. Hope that works for you. It is what I use on a MacBook Air. By the way, when ripping CDs you will have to identify the external hard drive as the new destination otherwise files will be saved on your computer. When iTunes is open, go to (Preferences?) and set the external hard drive as the new destination folder. Going from memory on this. Haven’t had to do this part in a while so you might have to hunt a bit in iTunes for setting the library location for ripped files...could be under an "Advanced" button. Good luck. Don’t hesitate sending me email if you think that will help.

PS - I did nothing special to "prep" or format my Western Digital 2TB hard drive.  I use Time Machine for back up to that same ext. hard drive. Since I only keep the basic iTunes software on the computer and have no significant library associated with it, backup does not duplicate my iTunes library on the external hard drive.  

You might be well served experimenting with "exporting" just a portion of your library - 1 or 2 saved CDs  - until you get the hang of things.

I made that transition about 18 months ago.

I decided on an Autonomic Controls MMS-5A "Mirage" music server, which has a 1tb internal hard drive, a decent iPad app to control it, an app that runs on my Windows10 laptop to sync from my iTunes library, the laptop is where I have iTunes configured to capture CDs in 44.1/16 bit AIFF files, with a 4tb external hard drive for the iTunes content.  The MMS-5A also connects to my streaming services (Tidal, Spotify & Tunein), and has an app to back up its hard drive "automagically" to my Google Drive account.  I have an external DAC, so I have no experience with the one built into the music server, I suspect it's not the best quality.  I use the coax output from the server to the DAC (I use the USB output from my Windows10 laptop to the DAC as well).

Autonomic's support staff are really good.

Lear - I have a 2nd WD hard drive on which I maintain a duplicate of my iTunes library.  Also use Time Machine to back up the MBA to this one too...so, duplicates of both the MBA and iTunes library on external hard drives.