I am looking into buying a 15gb, 3rd generation iPod. I have read the specs, played with one at the Ideal Home Exhibition in London (the older model) but I have one concern.

If I transfer songs to my iPod, and then delete them from my PC, do the songs I delete 'disappear' from my iPod next time I sync with my PC? I don't have a lot of space on my hard drive, certainly not 15gb.

Anyone have the answer?

Thank you very much if you do.

The iPod software is not designed to enable the device to act as primary storage for your music. It assumes that there is a 'mothership' to sync with to keep it up to date.

That said, I'm sure some other tech savvy FT person can clue you in to how to do this without losing the original files.

There are ways...

Edited to add: In my view, an iPod and a set of NC headphones are essential for frequent longhaul travellers. What else are you going to do? Read the in flight magazine!

[This message has been edited by michswiss (edited 08-26-2003).]

A couple of things come to mind:

1. Consider investing in a USB/Firewire based hard drive. These units offer huge amounts of backup space at very reasonable prices.

2. Consider inversting in a CD burner and backing the music files (and other important bur rarely needed files) that way.

------------------
Michael Steinberg
Editor
BizTrip
www.biztrip.com
A site for travelers by a traveler with 20+ years experience
Please visit my site and let me know what you think.

I was thinking about getting an Ipod as well a few months back, but opted for a Sony minidisc player instead. Why?

1. Battery life on the Ipod is pathetic. After 8 hours, it's basically dead. So much for music on those 12-hour flights.

2. Sound quality is better (SOny's ATRAC format is supposedly better than .mp3, but the jury is still out).

3. Less fragile. Drop the Ipod and it's bye-bye hard drive. Drop the minidisc player (i have already) and chances are you'll be fine.

The drawbacks of the minidisc? Carrying discs, but theses are small and hold heaps of songs on each (i can usually fit about three cds on one disc).

I tried to advise people on this months ago but was blasted because of Sony's useless software...

Michael, the only thing that comes to mind with me on your reply is that it doesn't have anything to do with the original question

Bikergirl, on my mac I HAD to keep the files on the machine or it would delete then when I synced. With the ipod on my windows machines I used third party software and did not need to keep them on my machine but I don't have any expereince with the software Apple delivers with it...

I'm pretty sure there are still solutions that do not require a full "sync" of the music.

And that, my friends, is the reason I stick with iPod. The iPod integrates beautifully, seamlessly and effortlessly with my iBook.

To answer the original question, unfortunately if you delete songs from iTunes, next time the iPod syncs, it too deletes the same songs. Unless you manually sync which is rather tedious and breaks the tight integration between iTunes and iPod.

I have scoured the Net looking for a better solution but my efforts have so far been futile. So my temporary solution is to free up my iBook's hard drive by backing up infrequently played albums in my iTunes library to CD in mp3 format. You can back up several albums to 1 CD.

On windows machines, there are lots of software solutions to synch your ipod. You can definitely keep tunes on your ipod without storing them on your PC. Although I haven't done this, there is also software to let you transfer from your ipod back to PC.

It is an investment of time to rip mp3 files, so it is probably a good idea to have a backup and not have your ipod be the only repository of your music.

I took this to mean she was looking for possible alternative storage methods. Hey, nobody's perfect.

------------------
Michael Steinberg
Editor
BizTrip
www.biztrip.com
A site for travelers by a traveler with 20+ years experience
Please visit my site and let me know what you think.

Bah. Rubbish. Sony's software may be a bit arcane to use, but let's look closely at the so-called restrictions: You are only allowed to a have particular track 'checked-out' three times. That means any one track cannot really be on more than three minidiscs. My question is this: when would you want it on more than three discs?

Also, if you really wanted to, you could simply erase the songs from the hard drive after you made three copies, then totally reformat your HDD, re-install the software, and then make three more copies.

BOttom line: I haven't found Sony's restrictions that bad at all.

Don't drop your IPod!

As others have said, you can set up the iPod to automatically sync, or you can have it manually sync, where you pick and choose what songs you want on or off of it or your computer. With 15G of music, manually syncing will get tedious though!

I would suggest getting a cheapo external Firewire hard drive, 15 or 20G, dedicated to your music library. This way you don't have to worry about your music taking up space on your primary hard drive. It looks like you can pick one up for about $100. If you have a desktop with a spare drive bay, you could get an internal drive for about $50, but you'd need to install it (not really difficult).

It sounds like you have a Wintel system. iTunes for Windows will be out the latter part of this year (which is approaching). Having all your music on the separate drive will work particularly well for iTunes. Also, iTunes should really improve the integration of your iPod with your computer, hopefully to the level that Mac users enjoy now. --And you'll get access to the iTunes Music Store, which also integrates nicely. There are other online music stores out there, but so far, I like iTMS, because it's so seamless, easy to navigate, and the DRM is the most friendly.

It sucked then and still sucks today

Take a look at the Archos Jukebox Studio 20. It is a system that can get upgraded to your hearts content. I'd recommend the Studio 20, with the Rockbox software, and replace the Archos batteries with some 2100 mAh AA batteries.

You get a great 20gb mp3 player, 20gb of portable PC/Mac disk storage, and about 14-16 hours of life for about $250

Studio 20:
http://www.archos.com/products/prw_500214.html

Rockbox rom:
http://rockbox.haxx.se/

2100 mAh batteries:
http://search.ebay.com/search/search...0&BasicSearch=

All that to use the music that you already own? What a deal!

Have you converted everything form mp3 to atrac? Or do you keep both?

For what you own on CD, you don't convert to mp3 then to ATRAC. Straight to ATRAC from CD.

If all you do is download mp3s from the net, then an Ipod is for you. If you're looking to make your extensive (and legal) music collection mobile, then a minidisc player is best.

Software inadequacies are surmountable. The fact that most people on the planet use Windows is proof of this.