In Case of Loss

If you're the type of person who takes your iPod everywhere and enjoys listening to your music while traveling, there's a chance you might lose or damage your iPod one day. Buying a new iPod is easy, but all your music will be lost unless you backed it up somewhere. Buying new copies of all your music or reburning CDs is tiresome, so a backup would ensure your music is never permanently lost.

iTunes or iPod Backup

Technically, there is no difference which library you back up, your iTunes or your iPod library. If you have iTunes 8 or later, a "backup to CD/DVD" option is available. If you back up your entire iTunes library, all the data you have on your iPod should also be backed up. The option to back up to any other source is not available--just to CD and DVD.

When You Don't Use iTunes

Many people use an iPod but do not use iTunes. In this case, Apple does not allow for a way to back up your library. There are a variety of programs that enable your iPod to copy music to another computer, but none of these are endorsed by Apple. From time to time, Apple creates updates to make these "illegal" software applications ineffective; between updates, many applications will work.

Using the Backup

As long as you have a backup of your iPod or iTunes library, recovering your music is simple. Connect your iPod to the source of the backup and move your library back to your iPod. If your backup is on CDs or DVDs, you will connect to a computer and reload the library to your iPod.

Better Safe than Sorry

Because the iPod is so small, it's easy to lose or misplace; some are stolen. If you have an updated library backed up to another source, restoring your entire music and movie library to your new iPod is a simple procedure.

Source:

Apple iPod 101

TUAW