[GregBe]

I am about to purchase an Ipod 160. I don't have an external storage drive right now, and probably won't be getting one right away unless I need to. Right now, my laptop only has about 20 GB of storage left on it. If I go ahead and load up my Ipod and erase the files from my laptop as I go, can I later download all of the files from my Ipod to an external storage device, once I purchase one?

Thanks
Greg

 

[moriez]

Im sure you can. Theres a freeware tool called iDump which does the trick. If you search on the net there might be handier ones. A word of advice: think twice before you throw away the files on your laptop. If your iPod crashes and you have to restore it, its bye bye lovely music. Aint nuttin nice!

 

[LaBreaHead]

"can I later download all of the files from my Ipod to an external storage device...?

Yes -- Anapod, among other third-party software packages, allow you to do what iTunes doesn't want you to: move songs off of the player onto a computer.

I wouldn't get too used to using a highly portable, and thus highly vulnerable (theft, breakage, etc.) device as my master source for my music. I'm just cautious, I guess, but having all or part of your music backed up onto a removable drive (you can store .wav or other lossless files as well as MP3s, WMAs, AACs, etc., as well) brings more peace of mind. And storage prices are coming down all the time ... in the long run, it can save you time, as well as money. Even a laptop is vulnerable in much the same way that an iPod or MP3 player would be.

 

[bobloblaw]

"I wouldn't get too used to using a highly portable, and thus highly vulnerable (theft, breakage, etc.) device as my m"aster source for my music."

I second that. If you're dealing with CD's you'll have to re-rip, it's worth the $100 to get a decent backup HD for all of your stuff.

As a guy who's been there, I'll just say that this latest batch of re-rips has me seriously considering redundant hard drives, just to avoid ever doing this again!

 

[ernieBob]

There are quite a few tools out there that do it these days (windows or mac). But you should back up the music on a second medium like a recordable DVD(s) and not rely on the ipod only as sole storage medium.

 

[virtuoso]

of course man...
you can use the option "enable disk use" in the itunes..

 

[krmathis]

Yes, you sure can!
But you will need some kind of 3rd. party applications, since iTunes prevent you from doing it.

 

[impressive]

yeah.. you wont be able to do it without a third party s/w
but dont worry.. there are loads of freewares on the internet offering this..

 

[GregBe]

I think I may do it right the first time around and get an external hard drive from the get go. What should I be looking for in one? Are certain brands better than others?

 

[LaBreaHead]

If you get something very small and portable, you'll pay quite a lot on a cost-to-capacity basis. Something higher-capacity and larger -- but still quite compact -- would be more cost-effective, if that's an issue.

Some of the names out there include Western Digital, among others. It doesn't have to be stylish, especially if you will be keeping it in storage, out of sight ... but there are some interesting-looking brands and models available. Try for something in the 200+ GB capacity, at least, to give you room to add stuff (not everything I have ripped is on one of my players at any given time, necessarily, plus I have some music ripped and stored in both MP3 and .wav formats). The higher the capacity, the better, I would think -- you might want to store digital images and other media, so no point getting too little in the way of capacity.

 

[DJShadow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriez /img/forum/go_quote.gif Im sure you can. Theres a freeware tool called iDump which does the trick. If you search on the net there might be handier ones. A word of advice: think twice before you throw away the files on your laptop. If your iPod crashes and you have to restore it, its bye bye lovely music. Aint nuttin nice!

Cheers, I had to reformat my computer (4 times in 5 days) and lost everything I ripped into iTunes and iDump saved the day. Works perfectly with the Classic, even preserving album artwork.