I just purchased a macbook air, and because of the limited memory (256 gb) and my HUGE music library, I need aomne form of external storage.  i am considering either using iCloud for iTunes, or purchasing an external hard drive.  suggestions or opinions?

hi!  just purchased a macbook air, and because of the limited storage (256 gb) and my massive music library, I am going to find an alternative storage method.  I am debating between an external hard drive and utilizing iCloud. icloud makes me a little nervous....having my entire library in "the cloud" and deleted off of my desktop - do most of you who use icloud for music and photos have a backup on external hard drive anyway? So....iCloud vs. external hard drive for storage.  Thoughts?  opinions?  thanks!

iTunes Match allows you to put 25,000 songs in the Cloud. At present it isn't possible to add more storage but I wouldn be surprised if that isn't an option offered in the future. With iTunes Match you allow Apple to match your songs (purchased from Apple, ripped from your own CDs are purchased elsewhere). When Apple cannot match a song a copy of yours is uploaded.
Once the match process is complete (for my 24,000+ collection it took a couple days) the fun begins. Since my MBA can't hanle all my music, I use iTunes Match to download a small selection of my music every couple of weeks. My music remains in the cloud even when I delete them from my computer and if I have WiFi accesss I can get new songs. It is a great service and much more convenient than keeping your MBA's music on an external drive.

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