I have 15GB of mp3s...How should I back this up?
 

I have 15GB of mp3s and have had my computer for about 5 years. I want to back all that up before it crashes or something. Can anyone give me advice on what I should do to save all these files at a cheap price? I would greatly appreciate it!

Buy a whole bunch of CD-R's (it'll take about 22 of the regular 700mb discs, maybe more, depending how your file sizes are distributed).

Buy a spare or external hard drive.

Using discs would probably be the cheapest, but also the most time-consuming, unless you can find a cheap or free hosting program with at least a 15-gig allowance, which is doubtful.

Screw that. Buy a DVD burner (they are cheap, you can get one for $30 off newegg) and just use 4 DVDs to back them up.

Hmm, there's a thought. I have a DVD burner, too, though I never thought to use it for burning mp3's. Would those DVDs be readable in a car stereo that is able to read compressed mp3 files? Probably not, but that'd be cool if they did!

Only if your car stereo plays music DVDs.

But you said you wanted to back them up...I've provided you with the cheapest option, unless you have a spare hard drive laying round you could back them up on.

External USB or Firewire HD. The one my wife uses is 120 GB external that runs on USB power - a great solution for notebook users - you have all your tunes available, and you have a portable solution. You can still burn the DVD's. but for mass storage, an external HD works well. I have an external 200 GB PATA drive in a USB 2.0 housing, 168 GB of mp3's... and I can take 'em where ever I want 'em. Can still synchronize my play lists through WMP to my Sansa portable.

This was my wish for a long time. Why don't they have car stereos with DVD readers in them for this purpose, when they'll make CD players and promote MP3 playback capability.

We're kinda past that now with game systems and movies playing in cars, but for a long time it didnt make sense that this incremental step wasn't made.... 4gb of MP3s in the Napster age, all playable from your CD Deck.

Just a guess, but having to navigate 1000 or so songs on one disc would be pretty unwieldy.

Buy an MP3 player that can hold that many songs. The odds that your MP3 player and your computer would crash at the same time are minimal, so as long as you have your music on one of the two entities, you should be fine and can transfer back and forth if you need to. I have an external hard drive and a big MP3 player so they serve as two forms of backup, but you shouldn't need that much for only 15 GB of music.

Thanks for giving me some options....I appreciate it!

Dual layer DVD, 8 gigs on one disc. Have fun.

Also a little more expensive.

dual layer, dual side. 16 gigs!!

I would just get a new hard drive. You can easily and quickly add any new files you put on there. You can get a good cheap 20-40 gig HD for around $1 per gigabyte, or a little less (found a 40 gb HD for $30 on pricewatch.com/Newegg.com).

I don't have any free slots in my CPU unit to install the DVD burner. Do you know of an external drive available relatively cheap?