How to Transfer Music from External Hard Drive to iPod

For the convenience of downloading and storing various types of favorite music, people prefer to choose an external hard drive as a storage device for their music. But playing music stored on an external hard disk is not convenient. How to transfer music from external hard disk to iPod is a challenge.

Compared with the iPhone, the iPod as a professional music player has advantages in sound quality and battery life. In this post, you will learn how to transfer music from external hard drive to iPod in simple ways.

Way 1. Transfer Music from External Hard Drive to iPod with iTunes

When it comes to transferring and managing data on iOS devices, iTunes is probably the most commonly used tool. Adding music with iTunes and syncing songs to iPad is a free way to get music transferred.

Here is how to transfer music from external hard drive to iPod touch, Classic, and other devices using iTunes:

Step 1. Run the latest iTunes on computer and connect your external drive and iPad to PC.

Step 2. Tap the “Device” icon. Scroll down in the Summary section to Options, uncheck “Automatically sync when this iPod” is connected, and check “Manually manage music and videos”. And, click “Apply”.

Step 3. Select "File" from the upper left corner > Pick “Add File to Library” to copy your songs to the iTunes library.

Step 4. Go to the “Music” section > Tick the checkbox next to “Sync Music” > Mark the "Entire music library" or “Selected playlists artists, albums, and genres” option. Finally, click “Apply” to begin transferring music to iPad.

However, there are some disadvantages to transferring music via iTunes. For example:

• iTunes is slow to run.
• iTunes is prone to data loss during music synchronization.
• iTunes restore data will erase existing data on the target device.

Way 2. Alternative Way to Transfer Music from External Hard Drive to iPod

Many iPod users are tired of dealing with transferring music from an external hard drive to iTunes and want to find out how to transfer music from external hard drive to iPod without iTunes. AOMEI FoneBackup is what you need.

AOMEI FoneBackup is an iOS data transfer tool for Windows users. With this software, you can transfer purchased and unpurchased music from external hard drive to iPod and vice versa for free. You can also choose to transfer all or specific songs according to your needs. Besides iPod, it also supports various models of iPhone and iPad.

In terms of file types, in addition to music, it allows you to transfer videos from iPad to computer, and transfer other data(including photos, text messages, contacts, etc.) from iPhone/iPad to PC. Now, let’s have a look at how to transfer music from external hard drive to iPhoneand vice versa with this tool.

Part 1. Transfer Music from External Hard Drive to iPod

With AOMEI FoneBackup, you can transfer music to iPod from an external drive by selecting or dragging and dropping.

Step 1. Download and run AOMEI FoneBackup. Plug your external hard drive and iPod into PC.

Step 2. Select "Phone Transfer " > “PC to iPhone” on the Home screen.

Step 3. Tap the “+” icon > Locate your connected external drive > Choose songs for transfer > Click “Open”.

Step 4. Selected music will be displayed on the list. Tap on “Start Transfer” to start the process.

Part 2. Transfer Music from iPod to External Hard Drive

How to transfer music from iPod to external hard drive? When your iPod storage is full, you may want to migrate music from iPod to external hard drive to free up space. Using the transfer features of AOMEI FoneBackup, without downloads, you can transfer songs from iPod to external hard drive with a few clicks.

Step 1. Connect your iPod and external drive to PC and open AOMEI FoneBackup.

Step 2. Tap on the "Phone Transfer"> “iPhone to PC” option.

Step 3. Click on the “+” symbol > Choose the songs you want to transfer > Click “OK” to continue.

Step 4. Specify your external drive as the storage path and click “Start Transfer.”

Other exclusive features of AOMEI FoneBackup:
●Transfer music from iPhone to iPod: You can get music transferred from iPhone to iPad with a few clicks.
●Transfer iPod music to computer: You can migrate music from iPod to PC for management if needed.
●Superfast transfer speed: Its transfer speed is much faster than iTunes and other tools. It takes less than ten minutes to transfer 1000 songs.

The Bottom Line

Whether you want to know how to transfer music from external hard drive to iPod or transfer music from iPod to an external hard drive, you can find the answer here. If you choose to use iTunes to transfer music but the transfer is failed, don't forget that you can turn to AOMEI FoneBackup to get music transferred between devices without a hitch.