Is storing something online, in virtual storage, the same a storing it on an external hard drive?

Essentially, yes, but I don’t know how well that would work for storing something like music online.

A 40GB+ online solution will not only be expensive, but also a little dangerous. Online backups are not the most secure or reliable things in the world, and while I have had good luck with them, I don’t know how most sites would handle 40GB of music. I would also caution against this because i’m not sure if iTunes could even handle and online music library. But I could be wrong there.

My advice is to get a wireless external HD (such as a time capsule) and place it in your house for your music. It would be a lot more reliable, and also a bit more secure with your music. It should also stream your music faster.

Yep I’d go with external hard drive, they are pretty cheap these days. I just picked up a 500 gig on ebay for a couple of bucks.

To add to my last post, add a wireless external if you really want it at all times. Otherwise, a regular one will probably be a little more reliable.

Are you using a desktop computer?
You may want to consider just buying another internal hard drive. Drives are cheap. You can get 1TB for $100 and while it is a significant one time cost now, it could work out to be a good investment.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic…Where can I look into getting that? Most TB drives I’ve seen are a bit more pricey than that.

@Blondesjon: Right about here.

I like newegg for that type of thing.

@Blondesjon here’s an example
1TB – $80. Free shipping.
These are internal drives which tend to be less expensive than externals.

If you want extra safety you could look at an entry level raid drive. These take more than one hard disk and can mirror the data across the them automatically. If one hard disk crashes your data is still accessible. These come in “external hard disk” flavours these days but are more expensive than standard hard disks.