[vcoheda]

i own two of these (6TB WD external drives). one is primary; the other is back up. fills up quicker than you think. i actually wish they made 8 or 10TB single drives.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBFJK0060HBK-NESN/dp/B00KU686HI/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1453323960&sr=1-1&keywords=WD+6TB+My+Book+Desktop+External+Hard+Drive

 

[bfreedma]

  i own two of these (6TB WD external drives). one is primary; the other is back up. fills up quicker than you think. i actually wish they made 8 or 10TB single drives.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBFJK0060HBK-NESN/dp/B00KU686HI/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1453323960&sr=1-1&keywords=WD+6TB+My+Book+Desktop+External+Hard+Drive

 
There are 8TB drives available now, with 16TB drives to be available within the next two months.
 
That said, you still run the risk of losing both drives to theft/fire/unforeseeable circumstances.  I'd consider using cloud storage for tertiary backup to further minimize the risks.  There are numerous good options - I've had a good experience with Cloudberry using Amazon Glacier for minimal cost storage.  Glacier is perfect for files that change infrequently and can be more near line than on line.  The current cost per month in their Amazon's US datacenters is $0.007 per GB - not quite free, but cheap enough for some peace of mind.

 

[urbino]

I'm about to have to re-rip my cd collection because I failed to back up properly.  Won't make that mistake, again.  Went right out and got myself a NAS and RAID 10'd that sucker.

 

[doctorjazz]

You're right, of course, and I will pay big time if I don't get off my keister and get some more storage and Back, Baby, Back!

 

[doctorjazz]

Not all that digitally savvy, (if you couldn't tell from my posts ), have no clue what RAID10 is, for instance (have heard of RAID). Bugs me to pay monthly fees for on line storage (though that does sound pretty inexpensive...pay more to TIDAL, I bet...)

 

[rgs9200m]

I wouldn't worry about the cloud for backup at first. If your house burns down or is hit by a meteor, you might not be thinking about your music collection too much. A big hard drive backup is easy and fine. Maybe have a friend keep one at their house for you.

 

[urbino]

Not all that digitally savvy, (if you couldn't tell from my posts

), have no clue what RAID10 is, for instance (have heard of RAID). Bugs me to pay monthly fees for on line storage (though that does sound pretty inexpensive...pay more to TIDAL, I bet...)

 
No worries.  Rough and simple version:
 

1. RAID means you're using a set of hard drives instead of one big one.
2. The "1" in 10 means your data is spread across that set of drives in a way that if any one of them goes bad, you won't lose any data.  There's another copy of it elsewhere in the set of drives.
3. The "0" means the data is written in a way that makes it faster to read back off.

 
RAID 10 is pretty fast and super safe, but the downside is it eats a lot of space.  If your set of drives has a total of 4TB of space, they behave like a 1TB drive.  75% of the space goes to redundancy and whatnot.
 
I got a QNAP brand NAS box, which are extremely user-friendly.

 

[doctorjazz]

Any particular QNAP you'd recommend?

 

[urbino]

Any particular QNAP you'd recommend?

 
Just depends on what you want.  I wanted one with enough on-board computing power to do transcoding, so that set a fairly high floor under what I could get.
 
If you just want some storage for backups and files, I'd get whatever 4-bay model was in my price range.  Four disks is the minimum to do RAID 10, and even if you use a different RAID configuration and just put 2 disks in, it gives you room to expand.

 

[rgs9200m]

I don't bother with raid. I just get separate independent single drives. It's cheap and easy to understand and I can move a drive somewhere else whenever I want. The drives are totally physically separate with no connection, so it's the ultimate redundancy.
With a big raid box, if something central in the box goes besides the drive, you could be stuck. And if storage gets even cheaper, you aren't wedded to an obsolete big box.
The purpose of raid is for a frequent or constantly changing database, like Oracle or something. A music storage scenario is typically not that volatile. As for the Jriver DB with playlists and such that is more volatile, just email it somewhere or put it on google drive 
for free cloud storage.

 

[doctorjazz]

Transcoding? Vas is dos?

 

[urbino]

Transcoding? Vas is dos?

 
We're getting pretty far afield, but transcoding just means converting one digital format to another.  It's used mostly to convert video files in older formats to formats your smart tv, etc., can understand.

 

[doctorjazz]

Danka!
Back from round 2 of shoveling (and not the USUAL shoveling it I'm good at ), no signs the storm is letting up, so likely have a big job tomorrow as well. Pono/acs Encores help with the chore.

 

[doctorjazz]

I thought I'd share an interesting way of digitizing vinyl records (reels and cassettes too!).

Like many, I have a significant collection which I do indeed enjoy through my main stereo system (described here if anyone is interested:  http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/320.html ).   This stereo is on a different floor from my desktop computer.  Acquiring a laptop and other gear just to "needle drop" my records never passed the sanity check, so for years the idea of this project remained a murky dream.

Recently I was motivated to rip my CD collection into lossless FLAC files using EAC (Exact Audio Copy).   It's a convenience and pleasure now sitting at my computer listening to good music through my Sennheiser HD600s driven by a Schiit Modi2/Vali "stack."    So I looked yet again at the notion of ripping my records, reels, and cassettes

What I found is that many were successfully using quality portable digital recorders.  So I took the leap!

A Tascam DR-05 with a 32Gb MicroSD card is hooked into my stereo via a second set of preamp out jacks.  This gives me the advantage of level setting with the preamp and using my Merrill modified AR table with Denon MC carts and SUT.  My records have been very well maintained and routinely cleaned.   So the quality of the sound going into 24/96 WAV files is as good as I could expect in a home setting.

From there I take the 32Gb card and import the files into a software package designed specifically for digitizing analog media, VinylStudio (http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/).   It trumps alternatives like Audacity with all the features it has tailored again for this task.   I end up with FLAC files (normally 24/48 or 24/96 for "audiophile" discs) with metadata and cover art just like what I get from ripping CDs.  Pretty painless and inexpensive which is why I thought to share here on this old but excellent thread

Don't know if anyone still follows this thread, but, after a long procrastination, I got the DR-05, and tried to use it for an LP today. I downloaded the trial VinylStudio to get it on my PC. Spent a few hours, connected the DR-05 to the record out of my preamp, hit the record, same on the other side. Took it to the PC, followed the instructions and imported into VinylStudio. I suspected something was wrong, because when I looked at the "album" in VinylStudio and tried to tag it, I never saw those wave forms (the squiggly, vertical lines of different amplitudes that look like a lie detector), the box for them was blank. So, somehow, when I thought I was recording, I'm guessing I really wasn't. No time to do it tonight again, busy tomorrow, try the next few days again. Oh well...

 

[Bob A (SD)]

I had issues the first first time out too.  I'll PM you some info to try.