If you have a 2GB, 4GB, or even the 8GB iPod Nano, then you have some serious audio power in your hands. Apple claims that you can store up to 2,000 songs on the 8GB ipod Nano…If you maxed our your iPod from iTunes.com at $0.99 for each song, that would mean that you are carrying around $1,980 worth of digital files! Did you ever think about how much you could loose if you lost, dropped or sat on your iPod without backing it up?

Unless you’re Steve Jobs himself, I’d suggest that you find a way to potentially recover any lost or damaged music you’ve already invested in and pushed onto your iPod. How? How much?

There are several online back-up services on the web that securely stores your files on their servers. In the event of a disaster, all you have to do is log into your online storage account, get to your archive of files and then download and re-sync with your iPod. It’s very easy these days, and it can be free, so there’s no excuses!

MediaMax.com offers a great solution for iPodders — a free 25 GIG file storage/archive account.

What I like about MediaMax is that it also allows you to Create Playlists, STREAM music over the web from your account as well as edit the ID tags for the music files. Basically, it knows your managing music files, and allows you to appropriate handle them.

For basic back-up of your iPod library, this is the perfect service — you clearly can get away with a 25GB account to back-up your 8GB worth of music on your iPod (of course, if you have MORE music on your hard drive, you can back those up too).

UPLOADING FILES OR FOLDERS

Uploading files is a cinch. You can use the web-based form to upload single files at a time (each time you buy a new song, just hop over to mediamax, log in and upload that song!), you can use the batch upload feature to select multiple files to upload, or they even offer a new desktop application that basically allows you to sync a folder (your iTunes Music folder!) with the MediaMax account.

After you log into your MediaMax account, you’ll see a “MUSIC LOCKER” tab at the top of the control panel. From there you can use the “UPLOAD” button to select music in your iTunes Music Folder on your hard drive to upload to your account.

Just click on the “MULTIPLE FILE UPLOAD” link and you’ll find a box with options to “SELECT FILES”, “SELECT FOLDER” and “UPLOAD”. Personally, I simply clicked on “SELECT FOLDER“, chose an album folder within my iTunes Music folder — and also checked “included sub-folders”. Finally I clicked on “UPLOAD” and sat back, and watched the files fly through the net into my MediaMax account. The 65MB folder with 14 songs took about 20 minutes to finish.

ESSISTME.COM TIP >> When you’re on the “UPLOAD” screen, you’ll also see a link to download the MediaMaxXL 6 desktop software which installs in just 3 minutes. This program is better if you REALLY have a lot of files (if you have a lot of music, you’ll want to try this option out) since it has a quicker interface than a web-based form and allows for faster uploads and downloads.

DOWNLOADING FILES

To retreive any or all your files from the web-based account, just go back to the toolbar in your MediaMax account and use the “DOWNLOAD” button. You’ll have the option to select the file you want and start the process. Again, for large amount of files, you’ll want to utilize the MediaMax XL 6 free software to make it a shorter timeframe to grab all your files.

Here’s the beauty of this back-up plan: You won’t pay unless you need to use it! With the free account, you get 1GB of download / month. Basically, you can retreive a couple of songs or albums every month for free.

If you do find yourself in need of restoring your backed-up files, all you have to do is upgrade to a paid plan for 1-month and grab the files/folders you need. If you need to download 10GB of files, there’s $5 plan. $10 gets you 25GB of downloads and $30 will allow you to download 100GB of data in any given month. You don’t have to pay unless you need it, so this is a great back-up solution for your music on your iPod. Wouldn’t you be willing to pay $5 to get back all the songs on your broken or lost iPod Nano?

I suggest you take the free account for a spin and try to upload a couple of songs or folders and see how easy it really it. You’ll have piece of mind knowing that that $2000 sitting inside that slim mp3 player in your hands can be replaced at anytime.



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