This posting addresses everyone who has more than 20,000 songs in their iTunes library. When the first iPod came out, most people could fit their entire library on it, even though the capacity of the iPod was only 5 GB (1000 songs). Reading some of the threads here makes me wonder if there is anyone left who has less than that in their iTunes library.
Question 1:
Whether the music is purchased from the iTunes store, ripped from existing CD-collection or downloaded from PirateBay, what reason would someone have to acquire enough music for several years of straight listening?
Question 2:
If having a library of several terabytes, which is the best way to deal with the space constraints of the iPod?
Question 3:
Where is it appropriate to draw the line between passionate collecting and compulsive hoarding?
1. OCD - I have been buying music since the late sixties and when I found an artist that I liked, I liked to hear everything by that artist. With the internet, I found that it was easier to download music by these artists rather than copy my cds, tapes and records to the drive. With that ease, came the availability of other music and live recordings and it ballooned out of control. I use iTunes as my primary library and its features make it easy to organize my music. My only complaint is that it doesn't handle OGG or FLAC files, and the alternatives to iTunes don't have the organizational ability.
2. It's just a question of rotating music in and out of the iPod. I go through my music collection and something strikes my fancy and I add it, not too difficult, though what is a pain is when I decide to freshen the whole iPod, which means deleting all of the music and reloading. I find that on my commute I prefer to listen to shuffle, which means that the freshen cycle is less frequent than when I listened to albums straight through. On longer trips, I go to albums, so I have the best of both worlds with my iPod and my music collection.
3. Given the size and expense of hard drives, it doesn't really matter if you can afford it. I have two external Rosewill drive cases that hold four drives each, besides the four drives in my MacPro. I have my music and movies in there, though there are currently two empty bays due to the price rise on internal drives after the floods in Thailand. Prices have started to drop, only $30 more than what they were before for 2TB drives and I will buy soon so I can start downloading my cd collection into lossless.
The nice thing about computer is the size, so while my record collection, 1000 albums, takes up space of 4 feet wide by 3 feet high, my dvd collection takes up 8 feet by 5 feet, my cds 20 feet by 5 feet and my tapes 3 by 4, besides the VHS and Beta buried in closets, my computer and drives are a compact 2 x 2, and accessible by a few clicks of a button. (Oh, and I forgot my 20 feet of bookcases).
I don't view it as compulsive hoarding with the physical objects, since they've all been listened to or read on more than one occasion. With the computer, I look at it as no harm, no foul, since it doesn't take up much space. Best of both worlds.