Recommend external hard drives

[Chris V]

I calculate that I have currently about 1000 CDs to render to hard drive. That works out at 500GB of storage, which also needs to be backed up. This equals about 1TB of storage.

Allowing for future music additions (and some deletions) the need could well grow to 1.5TB. That is pretty serious storage capacity.

While the Dell engineer was here this morning I took the oportunity to ask his recommendation. He was singing the virtues of Buffalo hard drives - reliable, quiet, well built, with easy operating software and automatic back up.

This model caught my eye:
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Reviews.asp?ProductID=3965

Any other suggestions out there?
 

[PeterSt]

No real suggestions as off yet from my side (I'm struggling a bit with it  myself), but that the means of storage should provide kind of inifinit storage. My opionion in your case : it is not. If yo start off with 500GB and the max is 750 it's not a real growth path IMHO. Also think of getting CDs from libaries, and it just being legal to copy those for listening (well, here in Holland it is).

Be careful not to use RAID as an implicit backup means; you can accidently delete something, and it will be deleted instantly from your RAID mirrored (etc.) "backups". IOW, you should make the backup explicitly, and based upon changes opposed to the previous backup (Acronis is good software for that).

The means of setting it up physically is partly dependent on your playback PC (a laptop incurs for different solutions than a tower like PC), whether you have a USB DAC (then the disk storage should not be USB connected) (Firewire likewise I think and that opposed to a possible slow network-connected storage box, and the ultimately fast DATAII connected box.

These things are very difficult it you really want to do it right, and the best (SATAII) is the most difficult to connect (if not impossible for a laptop).

All is related to eachother, when you'd see that you really don't need a laptop for playback, as long as you have a laptop that RDC/RDP connects to the whatever PC it is playing the music (the laptop being miles away from your equipment (where the playback PC is near), that laptop being your "control center" only, and the distance not being able to influence playback quality).

[PeterSt]

Additionally, of utmost importance is the means of expandability it you're facing  "disk full" afterall. When you're not careful, it may imply a new set of disks besides the ones you currently have, copying over a slow connection which takes days (!), ending up with a bunch of old disks for spare (hence, useless).

Note that if the expandability is arranged for properly, right at this moment you could get something which *will* reach limits within a reasonable time, but from all follows that it won't harm you. Obviously, together with this comes that disks are getting larger and cheaper, where "larger" is the most important (because of the limit to diskNUMBERS in their chosen cabinets and all).

[Gerner]

I calculate that I have currently about 1000 CDs to render to hard drive. That works out at 500GB of storage, which also needs to be backed up. This equals about 1TB of storage.

Allowing for future music additions (and some deletions) the need could well grow to 1.5TB. That is pretty serious storage capacity.

While the Dell engineer was here this morning I took the oportunity to ask his recommendation. He was singing the virtues of Buffalo hard drives - reliable, quiet, well built, with easy operating software and automatic back up.

This model caught my eye:
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Reviews.asp?ProductID=3965

Any other suggestions out there?
 

Hi Chris

I also play from a LT and have choosen two of these fellows:

http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=3098&CatID=&sCatID=

As far as I know they come up to max 1 T-byte only.

But they are quality built and completely noiseless. Price were around 500 EURO/each.

Now soon enough I have to think about what to do when the needs of more come. Huhaa.

But there is something I really do here: I erase all records I don't like to listen to. That free's 50% of the HDD in my case. Quality over quantity. 

You seem to have spotted good devices there.

Good luck with the ripping....


Gerner

[soundcheck]

Hi there.

My 2 cents:

Harddisks are a hot issue, especially by looking at its reliability!

Reliability MTBF (mean time between failure) is IMO a key parameter to look at.
If it takes you 10 seconds or 12 seconds to load a full CD into RAM is for
our purposes IMO not relevant. 

I'd strongly recommend professional grade HD e.g.

Western Digital WD RE2 WD5000YS  7200/500GB

it comes with 1.200.000h  MTBF.

If you don't find them in an external enclosure, buy one yourself. Assembling shouldn't be an issue.
Make sure that the enclosure comes also with a gigabit ethernet interface, so that you can use it as a network drive later on.

Cheers
\Klaus

[SeVeReD]

Since I'm using a laptop I bought 5 (well 6 now) of these 320 GB external HDs.  They're connected via firewire so that my usb is only used by the Stello 100 USB-DAC I use.
E5 Series Drives with firewire. (They are daisy chained with firewire)
http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/fs.html

I have an equal number of backup 320 gig drives that are pulled out of another computer and stored (i use a cartridge type backup called ezswap2; when i rip I send one copy to the Acomdata main Hds, shut it off, and then send another copy to ezswap2 sata type backup.  I then pull the backup drive out and store in the closet.... doesn't take much time)

[PeterSt]

They're connected via firewire so that my usb is only used by the Stello 100 USB-DAC I use.

For others : Keep in mind the importance of this !
It is just not allowed to use USB for your DAC on one hand, and use USB for retrieving the track data on the other. Both means of USB processing are different and conflict !

On the other hand, the problem would be relatively minor at using XXHighEnd, because of the asynchroneous reading of the track data. However, it still might bother at the end of tracks (when a next track will be read).

[Chris V]

Just trying to get my head around this storage and retrieval lark

Initially lets forget the back up drives, and concentrate on USB2 drives

So, if I get one very large (say 1TB) device presumably this will have a title such as drive f and can be readily searched, providing I have my albums well indexed.

If I was to buy say 4 x250GB drives, I guess I would then need a hub to connect them all. Are they then called say drives f, g, h, and i, and therefore more of a hunt is required to find specific albums?

Cheers Chris

[PeterSt]

If they are not in one box (hence one USB connection), it's my guess that you can't "span" them into one volume. But maybe others know better ?
And indeed, when you'd end up with 4 drives, that would be very inconvenient.

Btw, boxes for two drives exist for sure, and 2x 500GB would be a good price/value.
2x 1TB (which also exists since 6 weeks or wo) would be more "infinite" though ...

[Chris V]

If they are not in one box (hence one USB connection), it's my guess that you can't "span" them into one volume. But maybe others know better ?
And indeed, when you'd end up with 4 drives, that would be very inconvenient.

Btw, boxes for two drives exist for sure, and 2x 500GB would be a good price/value.
2x 1TB (which also exists since 6 weeks or wo) would be more "infinite" though ...

OK, thats the way I was thinking

[Jack]

Hello
You can, of coarse rename a hard disk. Instead of Local Drive you could call it A-I & the other one to J-Z for example. At least then you will always pick the right drive first (assuming that you know what you want to hear!)

Gappy Jack(or is this too subtle)

[Jack]

Also
For all you drag & droppers out there. Having renamed the drive, create a desktop shortcut to it. Go to my computer, hover over the drive icon, hold down the RIGHT mouse button, drag to the desktop, release and select "create shortcut here" with the left button. One click & you're in amongst you're albums & ready to rock & roll!
Jack

[Chris V]

I also play from a LT and have choosen two of these fellows:

http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=3098&CatID=&sCatID=

As far as I know they come up to max 1 T-byte only.

But they are quality built and completely noiseless. Price were around 500 EURO/each.

Gerner

Hi Gerner.
Those Freecom DataTanks look pretty attractive and would not look out of place alongside the Hi-Fi. By comparison the Buffalo kit looks a bit utilitarian (albeit a bit cheaper).
One reviewer of the DataTank said it was not ready for Vista yet, but this may well have been an old review.
Are you running yours with Vista?

PS
Dont forget to put your system on your profile signature

[PeterSt]

Hi Chris,

Allow me to answer on behalf of Gerner (who is enjoying holidays) : Yes. He has connected them to Vista.
It is just USB, so I can't guess why or how it can't be Vista ready ...

Remember, in one of these, nowadays, you can get 2TB of storage space, as long as the supplier mounts those disks. 1TB (2x 500GB) should be the least that's possible.

Before you decide, please don't forget that USB is a relatively sloooooww connection. A backup of 1TB would really take a day !
For a laptop the best hussle free option would be Firewire800 I think. Note that Firewire is really like a network (similar to ethernet) and you can connect and expand disks as you want. BUT : I really don't know what happens if your sound is Firewire connected too (like you have). O dear ...

[BertD]

For a laptop the best hussle free option would be Firewire800 I think. Note that Firewire is really like a network (similar to ethernet) and you can connect and expand disks as you want. BUT : I really don't know what happens if your sound is Firewire connected too (like you have). O dear ...

Yes, FireWire800 is fast but, Vista does not support that. XP does.... so when I do my backup I switch back to XP (then it is twice as fast as USB or FireWire400...

Bert