NiceCans
Headphoneus Supremus
I have ALL my music on my PC, and generally do not play the actual CD's. I find this preferable, convienient, and meets my needs. I never planned to get as far into it as I have, but it has grown considerably and at times seems to have taken on a life of it's own
In little time I had a good deal of time and money invested.
However, I have learned 'the hard way' to safegaurd my library. Here is what has been working flawlessly for me (or at least no flaws have been discovered over the past 2 years
).
Storage:
In the U.S. hard drive space can be easily had for approximately 50 cents per gigabyte, that is only $o.50/GB! I base my costs on new drives with a full manufacturer's warranty (which is generally 3-5 years) and alot of hunting/price-shopping.
I next add the cost of back-ups, in my case another matching hard drive, bringing my costs to $1.oo/GB.
Now, since I am (insert one: Paranoid, Anal-Retentive, Obsessive-Compulsive, Smart
), I add another $o.50/GB for "Insurance" and get a 3rd drive to use as a back-up/back-up.
Total Cost = $1.50/GB, Peace-of-Mind: Priceless
Working Strategy:
Next I have carefully considered my back-up strategy.
I avoid RAID (based upon past misadventures) as it complicates things and add additional failure-points. Also if you 'accidentally' delete part of your music library, it is INSTANTLY gone from the Mirror as well . . . . Not Good
especially for those of us who have a tendency towards being an 'air-head' at times
I chose to use a software back-up solution (in my case 'SuperFlexibleFileSyncronyzer', but Karen's Replicator [freeware], Second Copy, or others will work).
I have a back-up done daily overnight to my 1st back-up set.
If I were to accidently delete something, unlike a RAID Mirror I still have all day to replace it from the backup before it is subject to being removed from there, yet I risk losing only the current day's additions and changes.
(I use 'Exact Mirror' copy mode so as to remove any files I've deleted from the Library to be removed from the backup. This keeps it's size managable and avoids 'Disk Full' errors during the backup. On a limited basis you could set the software not to delete these files from the backup, but it could outgrow the drive rather quickly.)
My 2nd BackUp set is run Weekly, on external drives so they can be better protected and/or stored off-site. This insures that even in the event of major failure or even some catastrophies I will not lose more than 1 week's additions/changes.
OK, so it is somewhat more costly to assemble, and a bit more work to setup and maintain, but . . .
So far (knock wood) this has been virtually bullet-proof.
Of course I am open to input, anything can be improved upon. And I encourage you to put time and thought into a solid backup plan. Of course it is easiest (perhaps less costly) to do this from the beginning, rather than after you have many gig's at risk.
Oh, a few last tips I've learned . . .
-Get the largest drives you can get, without driving the cost up . . . . $/GB is the key here. You can't get the biggest available for this price, but as drive sizes grow the old ones move from cutting-edge to middle-of-the-pack and their cost drops. Right now 200 - 250 - 300 gb are fairly ripe for picking, 400's should become workable by summer. Once the vertical drives become widely available the current drives should plummet in price shortly after IMO.
Just keep in mind that smaller drives can get unwieldy. . . .
for example, I would much prefer to run 2 - 500gb drives than 10 - 100gb drives. Heat, Power, Noise, Vibration, File Management, physical space in the case, all point you in this direction.
(Yes that's 1TB and it is a heck of a lot, but was an easy example to use . . . and besides, always plan ahead
).
-Go for the longest warranty on drives, I will only buy 5-year warranty drives. I've had to buy replacement drives and much prefer them to be free under warranty. This also reduces your replacement program costs . . .
oh, yes did we mention that? Drives Die! which is why we have r-e-d-u-n-d-a-n-c-y. Plan for it.
-Keep 'em COOL! It does not take much air to keep a Hard Drive happy so noise can be minimal and your drives will last longer.
well I have certainly have gone on quite a bit here, I hope this is helpful to at least someone else
In little time I had a good deal of time and money invested.
However, I have learned 'the hard way' to safegaurd my library. Here is what has been working flawlessly for me (or at least no flaws have been discovered over the past 2 years
Storage:
In the U.S. hard drive space can be easily had for approximately 50 cents per gigabyte, that is only $o.50/GB! I base my costs on new drives with a full manufacturer's warranty (which is generally 3-5 years) and alot of hunting/price-shopping.
I next add the cost of back-ups, in my case another matching hard drive, bringing my costs to $1.oo/GB.
Now, since I am (insert one: Paranoid, Anal-Retentive, Obsessive-Compulsive, Smart
Total Cost = $1.50/GB, Peace-of-Mind: Priceless
Working Strategy:
Next I have carefully considered my back-up strategy.
I avoid RAID (based upon past misadventures) as it complicates things and add additional failure-points. Also if you 'accidentally' delete part of your music library, it is INSTANTLY gone from the Mirror as well . . . . Not Good
I chose to use a software back-up solution (in my case 'SuperFlexibleFileSyncronyzer', but Karen's Replicator [freeware], Second Copy, or others will work).
I have a back-up done daily overnight to my 1st back-up set.
If I were to accidently delete something, unlike a RAID Mirror I still have all day to replace it from the backup before it is subject to being removed from there, yet I risk losing only the current day's additions and changes.
(I use 'Exact Mirror' copy mode so as to remove any files I've deleted from the Library to be removed from the backup. This keeps it's size managable and avoids 'Disk Full' errors during the backup. On a limited basis you could set the software not to delete these files from the backup, but it could outgrow the drive rather quickly.)
My 2nd BackUp set is run Weekly, on external drives so they can be better protected and/or stored off-site. This insures that even in the event of major failure or even some catastrophies I will not lose more than 1 week's additions/changes.
OK, so it is somewhat more costly to assemble, and a bit more work to setup and maintain, but . . .
So far (knock wood) this has been virtually bullet-proof.
Of course I am open to input, anything can be improved upon. And I encourage you to put time and thought into a solid backup plan. Of course it is easiest (perhaps less costly) to do this from the beginning, rather than after you have many gig's at risk.
Oh, a few last tips I've learned . . .
-Get the largest drives you can get, without driving the cost up . . . . $/GB is the key here. You can't get the biggest available for this price, but as drive sizes grow the old ones move from cutting-edge to middle-of-the-pack and their cost drops. Right now 200 - 250 - 300 gb are fairly ripe for picking, 400's should become workable by summer. Once the vertical drives become widely available the current drives should plummet in price shortly after IMO.
Just keep in mind that smaller drives can get unwieldy. . . .
for example, I would much prefer to run 2 - 500gb drives than 10 - 100gb drives. Heat, Power, Noise, Vibration, File Management, physical space in the case, all point you in this direction.
(Yes that's 1TB and it is a heck of a lot, but was an easy example to use . . . and besides, always plan ahead
-Go for the longest warranty on drives, I will only buy 5-year warranty drives. I've had to buy replacement drives and much prefer them to be free under warranty. This also reduces your replacement program costs . . .
oh, yes did we mention that? Drives Die! which is why we have r-e-d-u-n-d-a-n-c-y. Plan for it.
-Keep 'em COOL! It does not take much air to keep a Hard Drive happy so noise can be minimal and your drives will last longer.
well I have certainly have gone on quite a bit here, I hope this is helpful to at least someone else
