[Sanjan]

so pretty much my ipods full of music but the problem is my macbook is too. I want to have all my music on my ipod and none (possibly only my recent playlist?) on the macbook...can i do this? or is this just another pipe dream....

[Jim_MDP]

Sure, use manual, not sync, for the iPod. Then erase it all from the MacBook and just copy new tracks to the iPod as you get them.

Of course if the iPod HD goes belly up... you're screwed.

[anthology123]

if you don't backup your music and rely totally on your iPod then you can be screwed. One day that iPod (like most things) will die. Either the hard drive will fail or the battery stops working, etc. Then what? You want to pay upwards of $2000 to get that music back? Unless you have all your music already on standard audio CDs, but you will need to re-import them again. 20GB is no small number, too. But hey, if you got the time to burn.
What I did was to buy an external hard drive and move my iTunes library onto that. They are so cheap right now, it makes sense. Plus the extra space allows me to back up other things, too. As a precaution, I have my iTunes MP3s backed up to 72 CD-RWs.

[MattJeff]

72?! damn

[ecking01]

Keep your itunes library on an external hard drive.

[icruise]

Yes, once you get much music in your library, using an external hard disk is pretty much the only answer (unless you have a Power Mac or the like, where you can easily add extra internal drives). I actually have 2 250GB drives that I use to store all of my music and video.

Look here for some tips on using external hard disks with iTunes.