How to transfer a lot of music to a such a small machine...

September 3, 2008 5:36 PM

I just purchased a new 2.4GHz Macbook. I have approximately 45 GB of music on my IPod (I think, it's an 80 GB IPod and over half full), a lot of which was never backed up on my old PC. Do I need to get an external hard drive for that much music or can I transfer it to my Macbook using Senuti and still have the Macbook run well?

If I do need to purchase some sort of external storage, which should I get? What runs best with the new Macbook? I'm not interested in spending more than $150, because I just can't afford it.
Once I have this hypothetical external storage, if it is in fact needed, is there a way I can transfer the music files straight from my IPod to the external storage? Please help a music nerd become a computer nerd. Thank you!

posted by anoirmarie to technology (8 answers total)

I'm not sure what you're asking. Hard drive capacity won't impact system performance unless the disk is almost entirely full, your data is extremely fragmented, or something else (e.g., a system search plugin) is screwing you up. I think your laptop has a 250GB drive so I don't foresee any problems. Is there something else going on?
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:43 PM on September 3, 2008

You should have at least 160 GB of drive space on the laptop. You might have as much as 250.
posted by mr_roboto at 5:51 PM on September 3, 2008

No worries, you have plenty of space on your new machine, loading it with data won't impact your performance. Fill it up (but leave some space free - at least 5GB for scratch files and miscellany)
posted by porn in the woods at 5:55 PM on September 3, 2008

As above: no worries at all. Keep 10% of your drive free and you should avoid any performance hit.
posted by pompomtom at 6:05 PM on September 3, 2008

Nthing what others said. If you want a drive for backups or external storage anyway, get a $30 USB "hard drive enclosure" and load it with your old PC's hard drive (check if it's IDE or SATA and buy the enclosure kit to match). Reformat it and drop a copy of your music folder on it. All you need is a screwdriver and a teensy little bit of courage to root around inside your dusty old computer.
posted by cowbellemoo at 6:16 PM on September 3, 2008

I think the OP is also asking how to get his/her music from the iPod onto the new Macbook, given that they don't have copies anywhere else.
posted by michswiss at 8:50 PM on September 3, 2008

Senuti or iPodDisk ought to work fine. To be sure, open iTunes before you plug in the iPod, go to Preferences, and in the Syncing section check the option to disable syncing for all iPods/iPhones. This will ensure that your iPod won't be automatically wiped when you plug it in.

I have around 30 gb of music on my MBP. Yours is newer than mine by about a year, and likely has a bigger HDD. I have no problems with it. If you are moving from Windows to a Mac, you won't even need to reformat your iPod; a Mac can read/write a Windows-formatted iPod just fine, and in fact you can copy your entire iTunes library from your PC to your Mac, and the Mac will open it with no issues (you'll get a momentary wait while it reads the library upon first opening it, but after that your playlists, music, ratings, etc. will be there - I sync my library between my MBP and home Windows system regularly, with no real issues).
posted by caution live frogs at 6:14 AM on September 4, 2008

Thank you everyone. I feel a little bit enlightened, a little bit embarrased. Remember...there are no stupid questions, right?
posted by anoirmarie at 8:35 AM on September 4, 2008