Hi there Keith,
First off, get yourself a fast SSD (something which reads 550MB/sec is good enough). Assemble that in the Music Server PC (the PC where the music is attached to - your drive D:, F: and G:).
Format that SSD with the smallest cluster size (512 bytes).
You can give it a Drive Letter of Z: (others are allowed just the same, if you only don't use D: or X: in combination with the RAM-OS Disk (in your Audio PC - Stealth III in your case).
On the SSD, in the root, create a folder with a nice name, e.g. \Galleries.
Take very good care that you have the organization of your "Original Music Data" in the way XXHighEnd prescribes it. I'm saying this because after this post it will not as easy to change folder structures as prior to reading it.
Main rule : have a main root folder in each of your music drives (like MyMusic).
Now go to one of your music drives, select the Library Area (via the [ L ] button in the top of XXHighEnd) and select a few albums for a test. Right click on one of the now selected albums and choose Add to Gallery :
When you click Select you will see a screen similar to this :
... with the notice that in my case the Z: drive as a see it from the Audio PC (Stealth) refers to a C: drive in the Music Server PC (\\ST02 in my case) which in your case will be Z: as well (because that's what your new SSD will be named as per the above instructions).
Done ? then from here on you could set your Music Root in Settings like this :
and when you now refresh the Library Area, you will see appear the few test albums you just put to the \Gallery folder. Notice that the [ M ] button at the mouse pointer below, selects the
Music Root.
Watch out : I assume no further structure in your music folders and which is not necessary either. However, you woould have the chance "today" to apply this structure, by making e.g. a subfolder in your Z:\Galleries : \Folk. Above you see that I did that. Now you could select per genre in your pile of music, and put it in a Folk folder. And Rock. And Classical and ... everything. Here :
which you'll find back in the left pane of XXHighEnd (Library Area active) :
Now, NOT assumed that you are going to do this, this will be your further procedure :
1. Make a complete volume (Drive) with music data appear in the Library Area;
2. Select all the Items in there;
3. Put them to your Z:\Gallery\ Gallery Folder;
4. Undoubtedly be hopelessly confronted with many things wrong in yout folder structure (the system will give messages BUT ALSO observe your XX Log File with errors !!); work through it until no errors appear and you'l have all nicely organized after it, meanwhile.
5. Back to #1 for the next volume/drive with music.
Notice that #3 can be re-done for a same selection when needed (it may be tough to find where you were at the hassle with #4).
When all has been worked through, you will have all your music accessible under one Music Root.
Watch out once more before you start :
It will be very good behavior when you make this general root like e.g. this :
Z:\Galleries\General\
why ? well, because later you WILL be using way more facilities with sub Gallery Folders. Like Demo and Nice Stuff which is where the other Root Buttons are for.
with here a glimps of a new feature in the next version, which is very cool and which makes all super-fast accessible ... *if* you define a few more things ...
... but then of course your
must have the Gallery Structure a kind of structured and have a structure like (e.g.)
Z:\Galleries\General\
Z:\Galleries\AIF\
Z:\Galleries\Ambient\
Z:\Galleries\Audio Tests\
and not at the same level as where the latter 3 are, also all your music. Read : keep your Gallery Root clean.
Take good care with trying this all out and know that all can be manipulated back and forth
but only through XXHighEnd. E.g.:
IOW, doing things behind the back of XXHighEnd and you will destroy the "database" (whle there isn't any) and things will mix up hopelessly (I myself would not be able to repair it).
Eh, have fun ?
Peter