computer retard needs your help!

[Lout Jim]

could anyone tell me what they think the best way to back up mp3s? this is my situation - i'm living in vietnam and it's impossible to find new and/or even mildly obscure music so i've signed up to emusic. i'm happy with it, but i'm afraid that i'll lose all of the music i've downloaded if my computer croaks. so i need to know - how do you recommend i back up my music in case this happens? thanks. sincerely, a sincere computer retard

[BloodshotBaby]

get an external harddrive. i had to get one for some film production classes i'm taking and it's a dream come true. i've got 300 gigs of space in two partitions and it comes with software that makes sure everything is backed up onto the external drive.

[Lout Jim]

thanks. could you tell me how much an external hard drive costs?

[Tom4]

I can vouch for the external hard drive. I always used to keep my music on just my iPod and burn them to CD as backup, and I was always afraid that if my iPod crapped out I would have to import all of those CDs again. So I got a 200gb hard drive, I've got all my music/movies/tv shows on there and it's proven to be reliable. I lug it around everywhere to DJ parties and make music with friends, and I've had no problems.

It's a FantomDrive, and it cost me about 100 after shipping from www.newegg.com. I paid for delivery within 7 days, and it came in 2.

Edit: Here's the actual drive I got, in case you're interested:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822154612

[Jake]

thanks. could you tell me how much an external hard drive costs?

You shouldn't have to pay more than 50 cents per GB. $100 for a 200GB external drive is a fair deal.

[cat153]

i just went through this as I changed laptops and i went the cd route for backup. It was much cheaper than the harddrive...i had roughly 6K songs and it took 35 disks to cover it.

it worked relatively well, but there were some files that didn't translate for some reason...i'm trying to figure out why (and more annoyingly...still trying to figure out which songs/artists didn't make it).

if money is not an issue, go with the hard drive...i wish i did. if it is an issue, the cd route worked ok for me for the most part.

[Lout Jim]

thanks everyone. i think i'll try to pick up a hard drive, though i've no idea where i might find one in ho chi minh city. i really should have bought one long ago, it would have saved me a lot of trouble. a few months ago, i was home in chicago and my computer froze while my ipod was plugged in and i consequently lost all of the songs on my ipod, over 15,000. i had to return to vietnam with just a fraction of my music. absolutely devastating. by the way, i have a mac, will that make a difference as to the type of hard drive i should buy?

[Tom4]

Nah, anyone worth its salt is compatible with both Mac and PC. I have a Mac with the aforementioned FantomDrive, and all I had to do was plug in the USB.

You can't have internet orders delivered to where you are? If so, www.newegg.com has good prices and delivers quickly.

[BloodshotBaby]

i have a lacie drive and it floats seamlessly between my laptop (PC) and the computers i edit on (macs). you just have to make sure you know people who know how to format drives properly...make sure the partitions are the right format....i can't remember what it is currently but i'll look it up.

[Lurker01]

i was home in chicago and my computer froze while my ipod was plugged in and i consequently lost all of the songs on my ipod

OMG!

A Mac froze? An iPod lost all it's songs? From listening to the people here, I was pretty sure neither of those things ever happened.