# How big is your music library? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788 "2011-06-08T21:48:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/21 "2011-06-09T01:25:33Z")
Just about exactly 4 gigs, and I’m approaching the limit of how much I’d ever actually listen to. I can’t even imagine what I’d do with terrabytes of music. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/22 "2011-06-09T01:58:53Z")
I have a TB of music, but it is also in lossless. An average MP3 would be around 15% of a lossless file. So I would say 15% of a TB in mp3s. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/23 "2011-06-09T02:29:20Z")
I’m not home to check, but it’s not very big. A very tiny collection of eclectic oddness that I rarely bother to listen to. I’m not much of a music fan. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/24 "2011-06-09T02:44:00Z")
Mine comes in at just under 5. ---
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/25 "2011-06-09T03:18:58Z")
About 700 CDs and 175 records. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/26 "2011-06-09T03:24:31Z")
Just over 20 gigs, about 4300 songs. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/27 "2011-06-09T03:39:50Z")
Less than a gig on my iPod 350+ CDs 300+ 90 minute cassettes …and sadly, a tiny number of albums left over from my once-huge collection of LPs ☹ ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/28 "2011-06-09T03:52:30Z")
Maybe playing time would be more meaningful. iTunes says I have a total of 41.54 GB of audio files, total playing time 22.5 days. classical - 17.42 GB, 7.7 days pop, novelty and other - 10.62 GB, 4.9 days comedy/spoken - 13.5 GB, 9.9 days ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/29 "2011-06-09T04:26:14Z")
About 1200 plus CDs, about 100 LPs. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/30 "2011-06-09T04:55:38Z")
I can’t vote as there is no choice for me. Zero gigs ---
**Author:** ![zoog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7ea924/32.png) [@zoog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoog)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/31 "2011-06-09T05:10:54Z")
I just went through and ripped the bulk of my CD collection to iTunes. Left out a few CD’s that I never really liked and am not sure why I still even have, and took only a couple of selected tunes off a few others. I have a handful of songs that I only own digitally here as well (probably will start making the cut to download only). Adds up to 6199 songs, 20.1 days, and 55.28 GB as of right now. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/32 "2011-06-09T15:05:51Z")
Thanks for the responses. It looks like from the poll that more than half of the people have more than 20 Gigs of music. I would have thought that this number would be much lower. 20 Gigs seems to me to be about the range that you no longer can store all of your music on your phone and a store your library in the cloud service would be useful way to get music onto your phone when you are away from your primary computer. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/33 "2011-06-09T16:54:29Z")
Your poll gets a little funny towards the end - the last two choices are kind of the same. I was a little selective when I uploaded all my cds, and I wish now that I hadn’t been; I realize now that I would have preferred to upload all the songs, then just delete the ones that I truly didn’t like, but I can’t really remember which cds I didn’t fully upload. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/34 "2011-06-09T17:09:49Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Your poll gets a little funny towards the end - the last two choices are kind of the same. > > I was a little selective when I uploaded all my cds, and I wish now that I hadn’t been; I realize now that I would have preferred to upload all the songs, then just delete the ones that I truly didn’t like, but I can’t really remember which cds I didn’t fully upload. Yeah, I did the same, mostly because I didn’t know how much space they would take up, and I didn’t want to run out of memory. By the time I gave it some more thought and figured I had plenty of space, I had gone through almost all the CDs. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/35 "2011-06-09T17:23:14Z")
counting my wife’s and mine together: Those discs which are ripped _and_ loaded on a device exceed 80GB. There’s a lot of music that’s not loaded to a device, or not yet ripped (maybe a couple hundred discs), or is only ripped in MP3 format (probably another 10 gigs or so). This is what happens when your wife is a vocalist. She has in excess of 10k songs on her iPod alone (I bought her the biggest capacity one available at the time). Most of the music is in 192k bitrate, but some (the MP3s) are in 256k. Apple’s new service strikes me as just another way to stick a finger into your life. I see no point to it. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/36 "2011-06-09T18:05:14Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Your poll gets a little funny towards the end - the last two choices are kind of the same. There is no doubt that the quality control people were out to lunch when the poll was developed. ---
**Author:** ![akrako1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@akrako1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akrako1)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/37 "2011-06-09T22:30:23Z")
somewhere in the 200+ GB range. I’ve never added it up. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/38 "2011-06-10T07:32:03Z")
More than an entire wall. 203G, and that’s not counting dupes and stuff I never want to hear again. And I haven’t even begun downloading the LPs. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/39 "2011-06-10T09:37:08Z")
Can’t check exactly as I’m not at home at the moment, but it’s about 250 GB (30,000 songs) which include the 1,300 ripped CDs I still own in physical form, plus 150 LPs. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788/40 "2011-06-10T11:20:52Z")
About 45 GB / 8700 songs / 25 days of music Doesn’t it start to become pointless after awhile to store all that music? Probably about a quarter of this music I’ve listened to less than 2 times. What’s the point of keeping 100,000 songs? It’s like you are adding more music faster than you could ever possibly listen to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-your-music-library/584788.md?page=3)