Over 2000 songs is quite a lot and I agree it can take up so many CDs. If you actually want to compress the songs into one single unit, you could try
WinRAR which is a free file compression tool which lets you compress the files to lower sizes. Later when you need, you can extract everything contained in it back to the original form. In the '
compression method' section, choosing 'best' will make the program compress into a small size depending on the PC resources you have got. If you have a pretty decent PC, the compression ratios should be good and it should be able to reduce the file size considerably.
7-Zip is an alternative for WinRAR which also lets you compress files to lower sizes.
Another option to compressing your files would be to upload the songs to an online location. If you haven't heard of it yet, you could use a site like
DropBox that lets you upload and store your PC files in an online location. After installing there little program, you simply need to drag the songs to the DropBox folder and it will be automatically uploaded to their servers and you can conveniently download it later.
Google Drive is a similar cloud hosting service hosted by Google that gives you almost similar capabilities of uploading files. You can consider these options if you have a decent Internet connection and able to upload/download them easily.
EDIT: Another easier option would be to reduce the bit-rates of the files by encoding the songs again. Bit-rates can be set by going to
Preferences >
Import Settings. Once you have changed the impport settings, right click on the songs and choose '
Create Mp3 version'. When you do this, a new mp3 file will be created with a lower bit-rate leaving the original one in place. So you can delete it if you want. Keep in mind you are reducing the quality of the file by reducing the bit-rate.
Edited by TheBigHelper, 28 July 2013 - 07:44 AM.