[iREZ]

(long of it) i only have a 40gb powerbook and there is no way i could keep all my music on that hard drive along with all my other stuff. so my fix is back up all my music onto mp3 cd's (no superdrive) and keep all my music on my 20gb ipod (which is filled to its brim 30 some mb available) and when i wanna listen to music on my powerbook...i use Senuti to get songs off my ipod on to my powerbook. now i got a 200gb hard drive a month ago and wanna transfer all my stuff off the ipod onto my external drive...should i stick with Senuti, or should i try iPodBackup...which software do you all use. moderators feel free to move this to the software forum if you see fit.

(short of it) what software do you use to grab songs off your ipod and put them on your computer?

[Randman]

iTunes doesn't like to play well with those apps and you stand a big chance of them not working from version to version or doing nasty things like stripping ID3 coding and merging songs into one another.

Best bet is to burn it to discs AND keep a copy of the music library on the external hard drive.

You can have a stripped version on your PB and manually manage your iPod. Then switch the iTunes music library to the external when you need it.

[iREZ]

i beg to differ...senuti has done great by me. never screwed up itunes, never screwed up my id3 coding and never merged songs...and ive been using it for months now. not to say that this is the rule, maybe im the exception...or maybe this is the rule and you're the exception...i unno.

[Randman]

If you beg to differ, why ask?

I gave my opinion, take it or leave it.

My music isn't worth the risk of losing (if you lose your iPod?), so I keep a copy on an external and every other month or so, I burn some new discs with the updated material (using a Smart Playlist to track songs added since the last backup).

You have an external, so it makes more sense, imo, to have your music library copied to that. Nice and simple and effective and it would take far less time to retrieve the music from another library folder than from an app that retrieves music files.

[reemas]

i think this is a good question. if i have music i own, i want to be able to copy it off my ipod back to my hard drive. it's not that fun owning a several macs with the ipods lame copying features.

i haven't tried any of the programs yet, but may have to soon. looking for tips on what's good as well.

[iREZ]

dont get testy now randman...it's just that i dont carry my external around with me all the time. ill have most if not all my music backed up soon anyway. i just want a way to do this on the road when i dont have my external on me. sorry if i seemed rude, but i know there's some handy dandy software out there to suit my needs, im just asking what people think is the best in their opinion.

[Randman]

What I did before I got a mini for the wife (I keep the music on it now but still have a backup on an external) is kept my music (about 47GB) on an external and manually managed the iPod. I also created a second iTunes library with about 1,000 songs that I kept updated via Smart Playlists and I kept that on my PB.

Haven't tried the app you mentioned but I did try about 5 of them when working on iPod stories and found PodUtil to be one of the most effective. Haven't tried any with iTunes 5 so don't know if it still performs as it did.

[iREZ]

podutil...ill look into that and maybe give it a go, thanks for the tip randman.

[inkhead]

What about backing up data to my iPod (i know another subject, but maybe you guys know about that) I've seen iPodbackup, but it's not convient enough.

I guess I want something, when I plug my ipod in, my mail, mail preferences, and stuff i check, like bookmarks, safari preferences are stored on my drive (not my entire documents, or pictures maybe select parts)

if i hit restore it would copy them back off the ipod... i guess i could write a script or find all the files i'm thinking of and have ipodbackup do it for me...