Section 30.2. Rule 2: Back Up Your Library

30.2. Rule 2: Back Up Your Library

Having a backup of your music files is excellent insurance against all sorts of music-library corruption. It's also a safety net for all the music you've bought from the iTunes Music Store; if something goes wrong with your hard drive, and you don't have a backup, you have to buy all of it again.

30.2.1. Backing Up to a Hard Drive or Another Mac

If you've got an external hard drive (the hard drive in another Mac on the network counts), backing up your music collection is extremely easy. Open your Home Music folder, and copy the iTunes folder inside it. Thats ityou're backed up. (In the event of catastrophe, simply restore this backup copy to its original location.)

30.2.2. Backing Up to CD or DVD

You can copy about 650 megabytes of music files to a recordable CD, or (if your Mac has a DVD burner ) about 4.7 gigabytes to a blank DVD.

Start by creating a playlist of your entire music library, like this:

1. In iTunes, click Library in the Source list .

   Make sure that the Search box is emptythat you're viewing your entire list of songs.

2. Click a song, and then choose Edit Select All .

   iTunes highlights all of your songs.

3. Choose File New Playlist From Selection .

   iTunes asks you to name the new playlist.

4. Type Full Backup (or whatever name you like) .

   Now you're ready to create the backup disc.

5. Choose iTunes Preferences; in the Preferences dialog box, click Burning. Click "Data CD or DVD," and click OK .

   You're going to burn a computer disc, that is, not one intended for playing in stereos.

6. Select the playlist you created in step 4, and then click the Burn Disc button. Insert a blank CD or DVD (either an -R or -RW blank format), and click Burn Disc again .

   iTunes backs up all your audio files. If you need more than one disc to hold it all, iTunes will let you know, and invite you to insert a second disc.

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Tip: You don't have to back up your entire music library each time. Thanks to the magic of the Smart Playlist, you can back up only the newest arrivals on successive backups .To do that, note the date and time of the first complete backup. Then just create a new Smart Playlist that includes all songs with whose Date Added is after that. When you want to back up that newest batch, just repeat the steps abovebut click your Smart Playlist's name in step 6.Each time you perform one of these so-called incremental backups, remember to click the Smart Playlist, choose Edit Edit Smart Playlist, and change the date to todays date. You've just reset the Smart Playlist so that it will begin collecting new new songs.

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