So I am thinking of making the plunge towards an Ipad, and I have a few questions...

1) My Itunes now is on a External Hard Drive, that I connect to my PC.. so how exactly would the ipad get my itunes data? Is it just like an ipod would?

2) Lets say I go on a trip, and I want to download a few movies to take with me for the ride. Can I download them on my PC/ External Hard Drive, and then transfer them to my Ipad?

3) Can I open Itunes on the Ipad and purchase songs and stuff? And how will that data transfer to my PC/ External Hard drive?

Thanks for any help!!!

As for Recommendations... I am guessing the 32 gig one?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don't know for sure about song since I don't buy music from apple... I do know you can buy books and apps though.

Yes, you can purchase songs from iTunes on your iPad. It's where I get most of my music. When you sync, whatever you purchase on the iPad will be transferred to iTunes on your computer.

If you are traveling I highly recommend the 64GB. Movies encode to somewhere around 800-1000MB per, I have 2GB worth of apps, 8GB worth of music...you can see how easily you would run out of space. Just my opinion though. Plus it's the best bang for the buck with the best resale.

All devices that are subscribed to your iTunes account should be synced with your purchases if they are set up to do so. I don't know the limit number of devices allowed. Is iTunes installed on that drive or is it storing your collections for a computer. If that drive were connected to your router as a stand alone it could work.

What drive did you get, the Iomega? I have my eye on one of their drives that runs iTunes.

I had all kinds of problems with my old computer when i tried to run iTunes from an external hard drive. However, if yours works with your iPod, then it should work the same with your iPad. As far as putting movies on your iPad, you can certainly do this. Obviously, anything you download from iTunes will sync with the pad... Other forms of movies (DVDs, downloads, etc.) will need to be converted to the proper format. There are plenty of free and not free programs to do this.

I haven't really traveled with my iPad for more than a three hour drive... But Whenever i take my next flight, i will be "renting" a few movies from iTunes. If you haven't done this, you can download movies for a lot less than buying them, then they sit on your computer, iPod, iPad or whatever until you start watching it... Then you can watch it as many times as you want for a 24 hour period, then it self destructs. Not bad for a few in-flight movies.

If you have 3G coverage , or ideally wifi, you can stream movies from Netflix. I watch at least a movie every day on my iPad while I'm at work.

The iPad interacts with iTunes just like an iPod. As long as the external drive is connected when you synch, and Itunes knows about the data you can transfer it.

Some of us have issues with REALLY long sync times and have to wipe the iPad to correct the problem. For that reason apps are the only thing i purchase from the device. I use iTunes for movies so that I have them backed up on the PC. If you download an app twice you get a notice that you've already paid for it. That doesn't happen with other stuff... You pay again.

Since mine is mostly a couch computer I could probably get by with 16gb but my wife got me a 32gb as a birthday present. Movies are about 1-3gigs. Books are pretty small. You probably know how much you need for your music...

You will almost certainly enjoy it. I've had more problems with mine than every other computer i've owned this century, and I still have it!

I hear the long back up times are often caused by the Zinio magazine app, if you have that.

You can download movies from iTunes either directly onto the iPad or via itunes on your PC. If you use handbrake, you can move DVDs to your iTunes and then to the iPad. The caveat is that they are memory hogs and your movie capacity may be limited.

It is just like with ipod, however I believe there are better and cheaper services providing the stuff for our's ipads.