Aargh, those lossless files are HUGE. I ran out of disk space and am having to go back and re-rip those same CDs as 192 kbit AAC (mp4) files. Some examples of the difference (first numbers are in the lossless format):
paul$ du -sk Private Revolution/
276488 Private Revolution/
paul$ du -sk Private Revolution/
64164 Private Revolution/
paul$ du -sk Legend/
320184 Legend/
paul$ du -sk Legend/
72580 Legend/
About 4 times the size of the 192 kbit AAC files. There’s no way I can see going the lossless route without an investment in some disk space. And then I have to wonder how much my iPod will hold.
One thing that was a bit confusing was that as I was re-ripping the CDs into lossless and then again into AAC files, iTunes would ask if I wanted to replace the files it knew I already had in my music library. I answered yes, but all iTunes does is put them in the Trash — without emptying it. So disk space wasn’t being freed up. I’m having to manually empty the Trash as I process each CD.
A learning experience, to be sure. Now I have to backfill some metadata (album cover art, etc.).