Backups

[adam917]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DennyL OK, so you've got 40 gigs of music on your iPod, iRiver, iAudio or whatever. What arrangements have you made in anticipation of the day when the player's hard disk goes belly-up? 40 gigs would copy to about ten DVDs, and that leads into the worries about DVD-R durability. I'm thinking of getting a DDS3 tape drive, and it would go onto about three tapes. If this has been done to death I would be pleased to see the links, or to know what other people do.

I keep my lossy & lossless audio on (over 650) CD-Rs & my PC HDD currently. I will be transitioning to DVD-Rs soon, but still using CD-Rs for the MP3 CD player. I do use an Rockbox iRiver H140 nowadays for most listening, though.

I want to get another big HDD (probably at least 500 GB) so I could put all of my lossless stuff on one and all of my lossy on the other. The program 'WhereIsIt?' seems like a good one indexing files on DVD-Rs. You can make a catalogue (say 'Audio') file then re-create the entire hierarchical structure of the disc to this file. You can brose the contents of the DVD without ever needing the disc. So I may have discs named 'Lossy DVD 0001', with some several hundred tracks on it for instance. I could generate a report of all the contents of the disc as well.

Anyone know of any USB 2.0 + IEEE 1394 800-Mbps (Firewire) external enclosures for 3.5" Serial ATA drives? Thanks...

 

[Csidinim]

I would stick with old ATA if you're going to keep it external. SATA, even if you could reap the speeds of the interface internally (which most people can't, there are just too many bottlenecks to look over with current systems), you won't even reach top ATA100 speeds from usb2 or firewire interface. Prices don't differ enough to choose one over the other either. The reason why I say this is because there are very few SATA external enclosures out there that do USB2, and very rarely firewire, and finding a reliable one is near impossible. Apricorn distributes a model, though I think it only interfaces by SATA and maybe USB2, and there is an AMS Venus model that has those two interfaces as well. These are probably the two most highly regarded lines of enclosures for harddrives and both contain 80mm internal fans and aluminum construction. But I guess SATA just hasn't been around long enough for manufacturers to put out reliable boxes and chipsets haven't been tested enough for SATA, definately not to the extent of ATA chipsets, so it would be easiest to stick with ATA unless you plan on using that SATA drive internally or by SATA interface very soon (I say very soon because if you're considering it for future-proofing reasons, no need, because with very little time you'll find a higher capacity drive for half the price with harddrive prices dropping the way they are). For now, ATA is still best.

I recommend the apricorn ez bus series (dtc for usb2 + firewire combo) or the ams venus combo drive. these use the best chipsets and are sturdily built but not the cheapest.
the apricorn ez bus dt (noncombo, usb2 only) model is obtainable for $33 at zipzoomfly with a mail in rebate that ends this month. otherwise they tend to go for over $50, but it might be worth the price for the most reliable keeping of your data.

 

[DennyL]

Quote:

The program 'WhereIsIt?' seems like a good one indexing files on DVD-Rs.

This seems interesting. I'll look into it.

I currently keep a relational database of my music and movies on my PDA. This has worked well for me for years. I was thinking that I'll need to extend that to allow me to add MP3 or Ogg material that is ripped and burnt to CD or DVD, so I can record what quality level it was ripped at, etc, but most of all find it so I don't rip it again. I'm an MP3/Ogg nooby and still on the steep part of the learning curve.