New Tech and Old Tech

So, almost a month ago, I bought a new external hard drive, and shuffled around our home network a bit.  The way it had been was an network attached storage (NAS) with an external via USB, plus a smaller external attached directly to my computer.  Our music collection (as well as shared photos and other documents) was on the NAS-external, and syncing our iPods was something we would do over a weekend.  It was just slow.

With the new external, I moved the small external to the NAS and each laptop got an external.  Then the real shuffling began.  The NAS and its external are formatted with a UNIX file system.  So there was a bit of file movement to perform.  And some other things as well.

1. Attach new external to my laptop, and copy (over wifi) complete contents of old NAS-external to new external.
2. Connect old external to my laptop, reformat, and copy contents.
3. Connect small external to NAS, reformat.
4. Connect old external to Jennifer's laptop, redirect iTunes look locally for files
5. Redirect iTunes on my computer to look locally for files
6. Spend some time deleting music of Jennifer's from my external
7. Spend more time renaming folders for consistent naming.
8. Realize the majority of folders have been renamed, so re-import music for iTunes.
9. Reorganize playlists
10. Attach iPod to re-sync, get notice that Windows needs to run a disk check.
11. Check disk crashes iTunes, making restart necessary.
12. iTunes requires Restore of iPod, but Restore locks up iTunes, and three repeated attempts yields same results.
13. Attempt Restore using Jennifer's laptop, locking iTunes again.
14. Setup appointment at Appel Store - Genius Bar.
15. Go to Apple Store.  iTunes not seeing iPod, but Genius gets it working after a few restarts of iPod.  iPod is Restored, but iTunes is not seeing the iPod.  I am wished luck.
16. Plugging iPod into computer brings up Checkdisk requirement again.  I hold my breath and do it again.  This time no crashes.
17. iTunes require a Restore of the iPod.  I hold my breath, and do it.  Again, no crash.  Trying to hide excitement.
18. After Restore, iPod begins syncing.

Now, as I mentioned before, syncing the entire iPod (an iPod Classic with 160 GB) used to take from Friday night and often run all weekend and might be done by Tuesday morning.  I was about 30% synced in less than 3 hours.

And so, happily, when I got up this morning the sync was complete.  So all is well, and I can put off buying a replacement for a while.  But I may buy one anyway, just to have a spare.