Small Hard Drive, Huge iPod, Big Problem

Reader Joe Gideon writes: I just got an 80GB iPod, but the hard drive on my MacBook is only 60GB. How can I fill my iPod with movies and music before maxing out my laptop?

One of the features I've always loved about the iPod is that syncing your media with iTunes is so simple. You just plug your iPod into your Mac and PC, and all your files sync up automatically—no thought required. But the latest iPods and their massive hard drives are almost as big—if not bigger—than the hard drives in our desktops and notebooks. So how do you get the most out of your 60 or 80GB iPod without swamping the hard drive on your main system?

Unfortunately, the best way to do this is by disabling my favorite iTunes feature: music and video syncing. With your iPod plugging into your system, select your iPod from within iTunes and browse to the Summary page; next, under Options, uncheck the "Manually manage music and videos" checkbox. While your music and video collections will no longer sync with your iPod automatically, you will be able to manually transfer movies and tunes to your iPod, then delete those media files from your system's hard drive to free up space. Now you're free to download more videos and songs, transfer them to your iPod, delete 'em, and repeat. (I just wish you could opt to manually manage just your videos instead of both videos and music, since those are the files that take up the most space.)

Of course, the most important part of this process is backing up all your media files before you delete them from your hard drive—which you're already doing, right? If not, now's a great time to get started. Just follow fellow blogger Gina Hughes' step-by-step tutorial. Also, keep in mind that transferring media files from your desktop to your iPod is a one-way deal—you can't move videos or music from your iPod back to iTunes (well, not officially at least), so backing up everything is even more crucial.