A couple of weeks ago we finished our series on building a digital music library from CDs you already own. By now, you have probably amassed a nice size music library on your computer. If this is the case you might be wonder how you should back it all up. Backing up your music collection is very important mainly because you really do not want to go through all the time and effort it took to rip and organize them again. So what are you options when backing up that digital music collection you’ve built? Lets look at a nifty little option available from Mp3Tunes.com.

When it comes to backing up your digital music library, the simplest option is to just buy an external hard drive and copy the files to this on a regular basis (note: I do not think that this is a bad idea and can be done as well). While this option is the simplest and least time consuming, it is still fallible because something could happen to this hard drive just as easily as something could happen to the one living inside your PC. So how do we get a good backup of our music files but do it in a way that has the least chance of failing on us? Mp3Tunes.com, helps us solve this problem while at the same time giving us access to our library from anywhere we have internet access. That’s right, not only can you upload your entire music collection to your Mp3Tunes locker, but you can play the files from anywhere you have access to the internet.

Mp3Tunes Lockers come in 3 different types offering you 1 free option and 2 paying options. The option we would like to focus on is the $39.95 a year locker which gives us unlimited songs with each song being up to 40 megabytes in size. With this option, we also get the ability to sync an unlimited number of computers and playlists. So a quick recap: $39.95 a year and you can upload an unlimited number of songs. I have over 13,000 songs currently in my Mp3Tunes Locker and there are some with over 50,000 songs. Now, the amount of time it can take to upload an entire digital music library can be time consuming, especially if you have slow upload speeds. The rewards though are awesome.

Once you have signed up for a Mp3Tunes Locker, you will be asked to download the Oboe Sync program (shown below). This program will sync the mp3 files and playlists in the directory you point it at.

The screenshot above is of the 1.0 version of the program. They have just released a 2.0 beta version of the syncing software that allows you to be more selective of the music you sync. On both version, you can select if you want to sync both ways or just sync up or down. For example, I have my home PC to only sync up and my work PC to only sync down. If I do not want to go through the trouble of syncing up at work or you can’t download mp3s at the office, you can use the locker after you login to listen to music straight out of your locker, no download necessary. You can also install a plugin for your media player of choice (currently only iTunes and Winamp) so that it will stream your music from your locker.

In the end, all this adds up to having a backup of your music collection that you can play from just about anywhere. Sure you can buy that external hard drive and copy your files to it, you can’t always carry that thing around with you. In all actuality, having an external drive with a copy of the files on it is not a bad idea it all and would work best in conjunction with an Mp3Tunes Locker. It takes time to upload songs to your locker and you might not do it everytime you rip a new CD. So having a second copy of the files as a “just in case” measure is never a bad thing. The ability to both backup your files and play them from any computer you may be sitting at is an attractive idea, and should be given some serious thought.

Do you have another way you are backing you up your music collection? Are there other services like this in existence, are they better? Let me know.

[Technorati Tag: Technology]
[Technorati Tag: Backup]
[Technorati Tag: Music]
[Technorati Tag: Mp3Tunes]