The biggest problem with ITunes from my point of view is having to burn CDs when you get around 10 or "however many will fit on your CDs for backup. My daughter is 17 but has been buying Itunes songs since ITunes have been available. My thought and my older 24 year old daughter's thought is to back up your Itunes on an external hard drive that you could then plug into whatever computer you own along the way. Because there are two weaknesses (other than lower quality sounds that vinyl records or tapes). Because you lose a lot when things are converted to digital from analog sounds.
Anyway, My and my older daughter's thought is to move your Itunes to your External Hard drive because they it can be plugged into any of your Apple Computers as long as it is apple computers like Imacs that you own.
Because right now we have Itunes stored on an IMac from around 2006 that my son put a 1 Terrabyte hard drive into later so it is still very useful today because of this.
My younger daughter says she tried to move it over to her external hard drive but wasn't able to but does now have it on her Imac as well as her Mom's Imac so there is backup on most songs in this way. So, likely I need to try to move All of her songs over to an external hard drive so there is a complete backup of every song that hasn't corrupted or been (accidentally) deleted by Itunes about every year or two.
Otherwise, it would take presently about 100 or more CD's to burn enough CD's to keep all the songs my daughter bought during the last 5 or more years with Itunes cards.
I prefer mostly to buy albums that are on Cd's simply because I don't have to burn them myself and then I can move them from the album into any media I want as long as I live.
I guess what I'm saying is that unless you are very on top of this you will likely lose up to 25% or more of your Itunes within 5 years if you don't back them up either with Cd's or an extrernal hard drive. Because how long do any of us keep any one computer?
So, it would be easy to lose all your itunes, for example, if you dropped your laptop on the ground and broke it if you only had your songs living there and your IPod. Then you would only keep your songs as long as you didn't buy any more or didn't lose your IPod.
So, if you have hundreds of dollars or more invested in your ITunes and you want to be able to listen to them 10 or 25 years from now, you likely need to either put them all on CDs and label them or put them in an external hard drive for safe keeping so you could then transfer them into any IPod or other computer you own over the years as you move through your lives.
I'm having the same problem with digital pictures from 10 years ago by the way. My cousin's wife has solved this problem by using Shutterfly to put all her digital pictures into as an ongoing resource for her family. But, everyone has to figure this out for themselves. It's basically the same problem as Itunes. If you don't find a permanent home for good family digital pictures that might not be printed out in an album you likely will lose them when your laptop drops or your desktop crashes for the last time. (Unless you put them on an external hard drive or at someplace like Shutterfly to keep them ongoing through the years). But even then how long do online companies like Shutterfly last? This is an unknown too. So, unless you actually print out your photos that you want into some kind of album it is likely that you will lose these photos at some point in the near or far future.
Another thing you can do is to put them all on CDs like often photo companies will do for you if you ask them. But then unless you label these CD's properly and put them some place that you won't forget, when it comes time when you want these photos on these Cd's will you be able to find them?
For example, in the last 10 or more years of taking digital photos I'm only sure where the last 2 or 3 years of photos actually are. They are on my Macbook Pro Laptop. But that means I have about 10,000 photos from traveling all over the world with my family. And how many photos have been printed out from that many photos? Probably less then 50. So, you see the problem even I tend to have with all this. So, though my desktop on my computers are often laden with thumbnail photos I love mostly I don't print them out. However, I probably have about 50 to 100 photos I've taken here at my blog I've taken all over the world.
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