music library on iPod?

[xjohn]

I just got a new iPod at the Apple Center in Beijing, and am extremely happy with it. I got the 30GB model because it was the only one available--the rest were sold out The people in the store told me that it wasn't just their store that didn't have them, apparently Apple China is completely out of stock.

As happy as I am with the iPod, I am running to a small problem, and I wonder if anybody can help.

My iPod's hard drive is bigger than the 10GB drive on my iBook. I outgrew the 10GBs a long time ago, and purchased an external hard drive to deal with the overflow. All of my music is on the external drive, which has a nastily loud fan.

What I'd like to do is stop using the external drive to store my music, and just use the iPod. Does anyone know if this is possible? I can't figure out how to make it work.

 

[Horrortaxi]

Put all your music on the iPod and set iTunes to update playlists manually and you should be okay to delete the files from your hard drive. As you get new music you can add it to the iPod. Just make sure iTunes never automatically updates with an empty library or you'll lose everything on the iPod. If you need to get your music off the iPod there are several utilities for that as well.

 

[xjohn]

Thanks!

Thanks so much for the help, Horrortaxi. I'm always amazed at how helpful the macrumors community is.

 

[King Cobra]

>If you need to get your music off the iPod there are several utilities for that as well. (Horrortaxi)

It doesn't get any better than this.

 

[Gus]

That's good advice. Alternatively, if you just want to store the files as data, don't forget that the iPod also acts as a Firewire HD, so you can store them as both music and data, if you have the room. In iTunes, click the "Enable Firewire HD mode" in the iPod settings. It will appear on the desktop as a storage device then.

Regards,
Gus

 

[xjohn]

Gus: I thought about storing them as both music and data (I've got room right now, as I've only got around 9GB of music), but I decided that wouldn't work well as a long-term solution.

As of right now, I'm keeping a "data" copy of all of the music on my old external hard drive for backup purposes.

 

[Giaguara]

If you need to get some music back from iPod to iBook, there are several apps that do that (itunes does not), e.g. iTunes Viewer (you find it from versiontracker, it's freeware). I have 20 g HD + 20 G iPod and do the same thing

 

[Gus]

Then that is the ideal situation! you have no worries about erasing anything permanently through iTunes then, if you have it backed up. The previous suggestion is best then.

Regards,
Gus