iPod users-- please help.

[HeyManThatsCool]

I got the 10,000 song iPod for Christmas. Since then I have loaded about 1,200 songs in. I notice that it is taking up ALOT of room on my computer.

Am I to understand (& I think I do, because I have searched and searched) that I have to keep all those songs on my computer so that they can remain on my iPod?

I think that's fucking retarded. I can't put 10,000 songs in my computer. I have a fast computer & already I notice a slight lag.


I asked someone else at work today who got an iPod, they told me they had some problem with it & had to call Customer support. She told me that you get ONE phone call for free- after that EACH CALL is $50.00


WTF?



Now I'm kind of pissed that I asked for it & that my mom paid so much for it because I see no way to get anything over 2,000 songs on it without getting a new computer, designating my current computer a music only machine- and getting more memory & ram for this.


Advice? Corrections to my assumptions? All are appreciated

Thanx!

[northzax]

1. nope, you are correct

every song on the ipod must also be on the computer. which is why the 40 gig ipod is not as popular as you'd think. I'm sure someone has cracked the code to allow you to use the Ipod as a hard drive and self refer, but maybe not.

otherwise, get an external drive, and keep all your music files there.

let this be a good lesson to everyone that you should research your christmas list a little.

[HeyManThatsCool]

5. Your 100% right about that

Next time I'll be doing the research

[wheresthemind]

15. Your incorrect...

The iPod also serves as a hard-drive...

[barackmyworld]

2. turn it off "auto update"

Then you can add stuff, and whatever was there before will stay on the pod. On the other hand, if you kept it on "auto update" and deleted your old songs off the comp and added some new ones, the updating feature would make your ipod mirror what's in your itunes.

edit: or maayybeee I am wrong. Not positive.

[northzax]

3. this would in essence

disable things like smart playlists, right?

[BlackVelvetElvis]

4. Nope, you're right.

right click on the ipod icon in iTunes. Check preferences. uncheck "update ipod". Delete songs from your hard drive and no more lag.

[HeyManThatsCool]

7. BlackElvis,

You've done this?

Just want to make sure before I start deleting


:hippie:

[BlackVelvetElvis]

8. Yeah. I haven't had an issue with it.

All those songs will always be on your pod (it's a HD!) unless you have a problem with it and have to delete all your files. Good luck!

[HeyManThatsCool]

9. I could kiss you.

Thank you SO SO SO SO much.
I thank you- & my Vaio thanks you too.
She was starting to feel a bit bloated

[barackmyworld]

12. You could always try

saving a copy of a certain mp3, and then deleting it from your itunes. Make sure itunes is off auto-update, and "update" the ipod. See if the song is gone. If it is, you can always replace it from the mp3 copy.

[bif]

19. Yes. Turn off "auto update"

My daughter and I both have iPods. We have to turn off "auto update" or we'd have the same songs on our respective iPods. And once the music is on your iPod, you can delete it from your hard drive. I have a 120 gig external hard drive which is where I store all my music and photo files. I'd highly reccommend getting one.

[bluestateguy]

6. I have a Muvo, not an iPod

My unit only holds about 55 songs, which is plenty for me. I have a lot of crap on my computer, but I have a 160GB machine, a still a lot of open space.

Anyway, I can't see why you would need to keep the songs on your computer in order to keep them on your iPod, unless you wanted to go back and reload them at some time. If you want to free up hard drive space, you may want to consider burning some of your music to CD's, labeling and cataloguing them, keeping them in storage and having them ready if your ever need them again. Hence you could just burn them back to your hard drive, which could be transferred to the iPod.

On edit: I concede that I may not know what I am talking about not having an iPod, but rather, a regular mp3 player.

[Mr. Blonde]

10. You could always get an external hard drive

for your computer to store media files.

[salvorhardin]

11. This has nothing to do with your RAM or ROM

It merely has to do with the amount of space on your hard drive. RAM is system memory, and is erased everytime you turn off or restart your computer. RAM is like short term memory in humans while your hard drive is like long term memory in humans.

No computer I'm aware has any ROM these days. The nearest thing is your computer's BIOS -- but even that isn't ROM, which is read-only memory which could be roughly equated with a book. Once a book is printed you can't write in it anymore.

Any system slowdown is highly unlikely due to the amount of tunes stored on your drive. Although I don't know how well Apple's proprietary codec compresses music it's probably roughly the same as MP3. For MP3s at 128Kb/s you can roughly assume 1 MegaByte per minute of music. Assuming an average length of 3 minutes per tune your 1,200 songs should be occupying roughly 3,600MB or about 3.6GB (GigaBytes). Even being generous I can't see your current collection exceeding 6GB.

What's the totals size of your hard drive?

Also, AFAIK there's nothing saying you have to keep the songs on the computer's hard drive once you've uploaded them to your iPod's hard drive.

As far as any perceived performance hit, if you have a slower processor (like a Pentium 3) or very little RAM (less than 256MB) then it's possible that iTunes is using up quite a bit of your system resources (RAM and processor cycles). You may want to run spyware removal tools like Spybot and AdAware and a virus scanner just to make sure spyware and/or viruses aren't robbing your processor cycles and RAM.

[wheresthemind]

13. Some help...

Some explanations:

Your iPod is like a 40 gigabyte hard-drive. Your computer can't be that new if it's hard-drive is any smaller then 40. I don't know how big your HD is but you should not experience any slowdown until you have under 500 megabytes. If you are experiencing slowdown and are on a PC look for spy-ware especially if you have been downloading music.

I don't know about your friend. As far as I know you have a 90 day warranty on it. Now I would recommend BIG TIME going to your nearest Apple Store and buying an extended warranty. iPods are expensive and you don't want one drop ruining it.

So if you have any questions about your iPod... and I am not sure if there is some way to retain the music on the iPod without it on your computer. Then go to your closest Apple Store, go to the Genius Bar, and ask for help. They are incredibly helpful, but trust me, GET A WARRANTY!

Worst comes to worse you can get a new Hard Drive... Thats all you would need, not ram, not anything else a new hard-drive... They're not that expensive.

In the mean time you can search for help here:
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/

Find the closest store:
http://www.apple.com/retail/

[HeyManThatsCool]

16. I have the 80 gig

but I still notice a slow down

[Deja Q]

14. Do you use a Mac or PC?

There are ways to back up, but what you're describing is ridiculous. But not surprising.

A hard drive dedicated to songs would be good, but you'd still have to back them up for long-term archival so you don't have to pay 'em all again. :-(

I prefer to buy CDs used (ala Cheapo Records) and digitize them into the computer directly; send them to my MP3 player afterward.

[HeyManThatsCool]

17. The good news is

Most of the songs I have are from CD's. My frustration started because I've only put about 100 CD's into it and I have 400+ more to do. I only purchased a few songs from iTunes.

[HeyManThatsCool]

18. PC