Suggestion for using Itunes

Question

I have solved my lack of space problem from too much music on hd. presently I'm have moved everything to my external hd and use the music from this site. But I just realize I will not have copies if HD fail. I'm curious to hear others techniques/method of storing and using their music. If their is a better way, I would like to see it.

Answer 1

Austin:
You really should consider backing up ALL of your music, and doing an incremental backup regularly onto DVDs and keep a set in a fireproof safe or off-site.
Even though you have the original CDs, you've probably spent some time adding album art, lyrics, cleaning up the ID3 tags, which you'd have to do all over again if you lost your music files. Since iTunes has the nifty data disc feature, why not take advantage of it and back up ALL of your music.
First, you will need to create a new playlist and put all of the files you want to back up (this should be your entire iTunes library - at least for the first time) into that playlist. Ideally, you should name the playlist with the date of the back up (more on this later). After making certain that you changed the burning format to Data CD/DVD, select this Playlist and click on the Burn button. After inserting the DVD media, you will get a warning screen that you are about to burn a DVD in data format, which will not may not be readable by DVD player (i.e., the type connected to your TV). Click on OK, since you want this for backup, and not playing purposes. In fact, you will get this annoying warning each time you insert a new disk to burn. Also, you may see an initial screen saying that it can take up to an hour to burn the DVD. Don't worry - at 4x, it takes about 15 minutes per DVD. Also, don't worry if you see a message at the end of a disk burn about finalizing taking up to an hour - this is also pretty meaningless. It takes about 3 mins or less.
Keep inserting media until done. Keep these disks safe, if possible, in a secure location separate from your computer (like all good backups).
Now, as for the reason why you should name the playlist with the date. You do want to keep backing up, but you don't really want to keep backing up the same files (a waste of time and media). After you've completed the backup, create a new SMART playlist. It should have a few conditions:
Date Added IS AFTER (Date of Last Backup in MM/DD/YYYY format, i.e., 03/27/2005)
And if you listen to Internet radio or sample streams:
Kind IS NOT Stream
LIVE UPDATING should be checked.
If you do a lot of work with the ID3 tags, you may want to consider setting up a second Smart Playlist:
Date Modified IS AFTER (Date of Last Backup in MM/DD/YYYY format, i.e., 03/27/2005)
Kind IS NOT Stream
LIVE UPDATING should be checked.
Which will capture tracks you have modified.
Unfortunatly, you can't use both conditions in the same smart playlist, but you can create a third Smart Playlist that references both the New and Modified ones, so you only have to burn one playlist to maintain your incremental backup. Once a month, you can burn these playlist (as a Data CD or DVD, depending on the size) and after the burn is finished, you will need to change the dates to the date that you burned the backup.
Even if you chose to go the Finder route for the initial backup, you should use Smart Playlists and iTunes' Data Disc option to back up the incremental changes.
Also, you need to back up the metadata stored in the iTunes Library file, which is found in the ~/Music/iTunes folder. This can be done by duplicating the file and moving the copy to your documents folder, or if space is an issue, you can make an archive of it. I like to make an archive, then email a copy to my Gmail address - this way I know I have a copy of the file in offsite storage.
Lita