You have so many places in which you can put audio files these days. Before, sound was only available on vinyl records, cassettes, or the much-maligned 8-track cartridge. Now you can find songs on CDs, DVDs, and portable audio players; online; on your cell phone; and just about anywhere else a little bit of circuitry and a speaker can be crammed in. This is one of the biggest advantages of digital sound - portability. Digital songs can be copied and moved quite easily, in most cases without losing any of the original sound quality.
The following are examples of where you can store your sound files on your computer:
* Hard drive: Storage of sound files requires some type of drive. You've probably heard the term hard drive associated with computers. This is the internal device that stores the majority of files and data on your computer. The hard drive can store the most amount of data in a small amount of physical space, which is why most of the popular portable audio devices use this component to store large amounts of songs. It's also the most expensive storage device in overall cost, but the cost per gigabyte is quite small. You pay a hundred or more dollars for a hard drive, but you get more memory than a flash drive at a comparable cost.
* Optical discs: Optical discs, like CDs and DVDs, can handle large amounts of data (up to 700MB and 4.7GB, respectively), and they're much cheaper forms of storage compared to a hard drive. You can also burn optical discs as data CDs (which hold files to be read by a computer or another device) or music CDs (which play in a standard CD player). The two are not always compatible, however. Older CD players can't read computer files.
Flash memory: Flash memory is relatively small compared to the previous two storage devices, and it's impossible to accidentally skip ahead or move back the player while moving. For that reason, it's a popular choice among portable players that are meant to be used while exercising - the extra movement might disrupt other players, but not this one.
Moving data to and from all of these devices is relatively simple. You connect a wire from the computer to the device, or perhaps you use your Internet connection to download a file. The devices simply exchange a series of numbers that can later be read by a player or portable device. Or, in the case of streaming media, the data is read as soon as it is received. The moving or copying does not reduce the quality of the sound, because digital copies don't degrade. Furthermore, no physical parts can degrade.
Of course, like most technologies, the process of transferring music is more difficult in practice than in theory. Each device is built around one or two types of connections, and many are available. Most players are built around standard connections called USB (or Universal Serial Bus) or FireWire, which allows high rates of data to be transmitted quickly from device to device.
Look for computers and devices that can handle both types of connections. This will make your life much easier when you're trying to find the right connector cable.
http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/storing-and-transferring-music-files/153234;_ylt=Arzl9ZzjZHWJqEbqvxpqztYSLpA5
