I'm a big believer in external hard drives. I have a shitty one (Simpletech) somewhere in storage, but need to get a better drive so I can finally reformat my 'puter...
As far as saving MP3s (AAC for Apple iTunes actually, but basically the same difference), the gay iTunes interface won't let you pull your songs off the iPud and re-save them to your hard drive, only place them onto you iPud from your hard drive. Kind of a shitty thing after paying a buck for a song. Am I supposed to buy a new copy of a song after I place it on there??? WTF?
I was faced with this when my iPod Mini started having battery problems. Actually, it always had "battery problems" as it never had the charge those tools claim it does of like eight hours or whatever. This never bothered me much since I mostly just used it for running or spinning, and I never go any more than 45 minutes, and rarely if that. But I started losing power after only playing a few songs and it gradually got to the point where it wouldn't hold a charge much at all, and after recharging it for hours! So, fearing I would have to replace it with the contemporary rough equivalent, the iPod Nano, which for me was too small since it is half the size even though it holds twice the data capacity as the Mini! I did a Googe search and found this:
http://www.ephpod.com/ I don't need that many songs (8 gigs worth) and my current Mini has taken its share of abuse being dropped while running, or exposed to torrential downpours...
Ephpod was the first iPod interface for Windows, and was configured by a kid in college who just wanted his iPod to work with his Windows 98. While it is a bit unwieldy and outdated (he hasn't updated it in years 'cause he graduated and has a real job now), the great thing is that you can burn copies of the songs on your iPod to transfer them to the next one. Or at least you can reformat your iPod software and put your songs back on it. But it turns out that I didn't really need to do all that as I just replaced the battery for $25 and resurrected my beloved Mini and it is better than new! The aftermarket batteries are actually a hell of a lot better than the defective pieces of shit Apple originally used and will last quite a bit longer...