Considering Slim Devices Transporter - Need Your Help - PC Music Storage Questions

[Grahame]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was seriously enthusiastic about the Transporter based on recent reviews in Stereophile, and others, especially including some very informative comments by owners here. I have already begun taking the steps to put together the funding to purchase a Transporter fairly soon, but I may be beginning to rethink the wisdom of going that route. It would appear that there is a distinct learning curve associated with ripping, and what to rip with, and compressing cd's, and what to compress with. Add in the rather daunting fact that I would then also have 1500 cd's to rip, and the time involved..........well, I'm wavering. Add in also having to purchase a 750gb-1tb drive to store all of this on, and an equivalent drive to back up all of that hard work and the resulting stored files, and suddenly the once approachable $2000.00 price for the Transporter appears to only represent the beginning of the expenditures necessary to pull this off. I really, really wanted to take this technological step. Having all of my music readily available, easily accessible via the turn of a knob, and reproduced with exceptional sound quality sounds like a dream come true. But gods this would be both difficult and seriously expensive. JC

I would say it's a journey well worth taking.

Check out the slim devices - Beginners Guide wiki to help you up the learning curve.

I'd concur with your findings as to using EAC + FLAC as the way to go.

Try a couple of representative CD's to get the process down, and sort out any issues you may have. Correct Tagging tends to be the biggest time cost. Ripping you can do in parallel with something else - if attended, or just do it unattended an you'll get there. Remember the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.

If you do decide to get a Transporter, it can be used as a DAC using the digital output from a CD player, so you can still use it to listen to as yet unripped CD's.

As for storage, there's a quote that goes "There a two kinds of Hard Drives in the World. Those that have failed, and those that have yet to fail.

Storage is a commodity, and is getting cheaper. Buy the most cost effective drive you need at the time you need it. Slimserver can read music files spread over multiple drives - it doesn't have to live on one drive - that may reduce your total cost.

"How valuable is your Data?" What is it worth to you, not to have to re-rip the contents of a failed drive? Some people just clone the contents of a drive to another, then put it in safe storage, ready to replace the used drive when (not if) it fails, at which point the process is repeated.

You can also go for a phased approach to help the cash flow. Start off with Slimserver + SoftSqueeze (they are free to download). As you rip more of your collection, get a Squeezebox, then transition to a Transporter when it makes sense to do so. You would then have a spare Squeezebox for resale, or for use in a 2nd Room etc, still able to access all the content on the network.

Hope this helps.

Grahame.

 

[pedalhead]

I agree with Grahame, and just to add, I actually found the process of ripping all my cds really enjoyable. It's a great way to revisit your entire collection. I frequently found myself listening to albums I hadn't touched in 10 years, and really enjoying them.

 

[fstxhorn]

Then I would highly suggest purchasing a cd-rom that is well known for excellent digital audio extraction (probably a Plextor).

Oh man, come to find out that the cd-rom drive you are using matters too? There I was, happily ripping my cds using iTunes in Apple Lossless to an external hard drive connected to my Vaio notebook. I knew I should have never bought that first pair of "good" headphones...

 

[werdwerdus]

No worries, as generally the drive only matters for speed of extraction and how badly scratched disc it can correctly read. The features on these "better, more expensive" drives are what make extracting faster and less prone to error from physical disc damage.

 

[Some geek]

OP, you're overthinking this....

Let's say that by the time you take the CD out the case, rip it and put it back you're looking 5 min per disk. That's 125 hours non-stop.

So let's say you average 30 minutes a day... Every. Single. Day. You're still looking at the better part of a year. Relax.

A 500GB drive can be had TODAY for $100. Start filling one and by the time you need more, you'll be able to get a single drive that will hold your whole collection for $100 bucks.

NEVER by storage until you need it. The prices fall every single day.

It's supposed to be fun, not stressful. Just start ripping and enjoying the Transporter. The storage will take care of itself.

 

[Some geek]

As a Postscript OP....

Just remember that in (short amount of time) we'll have (blu-ray, HD DVD, hybrid) and we'll be able to put (70-120GB) of data on a disc that cost ($0.06 - $10.00)

And you'll look back at the thought of killing yourself over 500gb as funny.

No, it won't happen tomorrow but like I said above, you have a lot of ripping to do in the mean time. If push comes to shove rip your 500 favs and wait a year; you'll be able to get enough storage for all 1500 CDs free after rebate.

 

[Nightfall]

Good points all, thanks very much for the advice and encouragement.


JC

 

[Nightfall]

Thanks for the very helpful recommendations Iron Dreamer. I had the chance to talk this over with a friend today. He is a lead network engineer, and relatively brilliant guy about such matters, for a large Fortune 1000 corporation. His assesment was the same as yours. He strongly recommended using three 500GB drives in Raid5. These would have to be IDE drives (which, for this purpose, shouldn't matter) since my motherboard (and the vast majority less than current, and top of the line) wont support 3 SATA's. Now my only catch with the storage element is that he says my backup pc, which will be used for this scenario, will have to be converted to Linux, as thats the only reliable way to run Raid5 in such an application. This means I lose my $1000.00 backup pc as an option should my primary one fail. Not a great option.

JC


Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer /img/forum/go_quote.gif My guess is that you will certainly fit your collection into 1TB, and likely into a single 750GB drive if you want to go that route. Right now you can get the 500GB Samsung SATAII drive on Newegg for about $140 shipped (I have this drive and it is quiet, cool, and quick, what more could you want?) If you wanted to backup via RAID 1, the cost would be about $560 for four of those drives. Of you could use RAID 5, and get away with three drives for $420. Since my collection currently fits on one drive, I back up to an external drive, which also doubles as a handy way of taking my music along with my laptop when I need to. Backing up to optical media is nuts these days, considering the low cost of hard drives. Perhaps if blu-ray burners were cheaper....

 

[werdwerdus]

It's very easy to get Windows XP Pro to run RAID5 all by itself, if you have that operation system. pm me if you want to know more info.

 

[Nightfall]

Quote:

Originally Posted by werdwerdus /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's very easy to get Windows XP Pro to run RAID5 all by itself, if you have that operation system. pm me if you want to know more info.

Thanks werdwerdus, band I sincerely appreciate the offer, but according to my friend, XP cannot reliably run RAID5 for any extended period, and this was seconded by another engineer who was at lunch with us..........and they both makes their living in this arena.

JC

 

[kmcdonou]

Why not something a lot simpler? Just have two 500gb drives connected to your computer. Use the operating system of your choice. The drives could both be connected via USB, one internal, one external, whatever.

Simply rip onto one drive, and drag and drop onto the other. It is pretty simple process. No need for a RAID setup. Once you have your library on both drives, if you can keep one of the drives at work. Then if your house burns down, you don't lose your music.

You could simply transfer new cds from home to work by using a jump drive.

I never really considered a RAID setup. Mainly because I never did it and the process I described above was sufficient.

 

[HFat]

Remember this is head-fi... overkill is good.

Seriously though, RAID is nice for availability. Even if a disk failure crashes the box, rebooting is faster than restoring form backups (among other benefits).
For a music library that's mostly static, it indeed is very close to usless (except perhaps for RAID0).