Backing Up A Massive Music COllection

Like many of you, I have a giant ridiculous collection of music, gigs and gigs on burned dvds. I also have a lot of cds and cdrs that I'd like to rip and keep on a hard drive. Does anyone know much about hard drives or bought one recently? I want a good one that won't break, so maybe I will have to buy two. Is the technology changing very fast so that in three years there will be something so much better available? What is the best hard drives for storing music?

I have a 1TB external firewire 800 LaCie

I can really recommend it - a bit more expensive compared to normal external hds but its worth it

Any of the Western Digital MyBook 1TB external drives should suit you fine; and can be bought for under 100USD.

My personal opinion is that the WD build quality has gone downhill recently. Also those MyBooks and onetouch solutions have real issues with Macs due to powering down and not being recognized as mounted. However, your mileage may vary. The LaCie ones are good. A touch expensive but well built.

if you have a spare shitty pc laying around, build a linux raid. that way you can ensure your data won't be gone if you have a HD failure

  On 8/19/2009 at 5:13 PM, chenGOD said:

My personal opinion is that the WD build quality has gone downhill recently. Also those MyBooks and onetouch solutions have real issues with Macs due to powering down and not being recognized as mounted. However, your mileage may vary. The LaCie ones are good. A touch expensive but well built.

I've had a 1TB WD MyBook connected to my iMac since early this year, so far no problems, and I like the fact it powers off when I put my iMac to sleep. I've never had it power down on it's own, and had to do nothing as far as mounting is concerned.

Maxtor (ugh) have the "one touch solution" you mention, and yes, they are pretty much shit.

  On 8/19/2009 at 5:38 PM, Joyrex said:

my iMac

WHAT?!?!

edit - i can't do pictures today

  On 8/19/2009 at 5:46 PM, mrcopyandpaste said:

  On 8/19/2009 at 5:38 PM, Joyrex said:

my iMac

WHAT?!?!

Yes, I have an iMac, just like this:

Don't even entertain Lacie! They have been unreliable, failing within months and even weeks 100% in my experience.

Western Digital are quite good. Seagate too.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-External-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B001BG4QS4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250699718&sr=8-1

I highly recommend that ^^^ It has a WD 1TB inside. Using it at a few clients, has proved excellent and reliable so far.

HD are so cheap, anybody is stupid if they don't have a backup somewhere else than their near their PC.

So just buy the same external HD twice. Any time it'll break, replace it. You always have a copy. Kinda like RAID, but physically somewhere else.

Fuck it - You want to really be safe? Splash out on a Drobo http://www.drobo.com/ and buy two 1TB hard drives - RAID 1 the mother fuckers.

If one fails, take it out, get the manufacturer to send a replacement, plug it in the Drobo and it'll automatically rebuild the RAID. Cost you a few pennies, but it's awesome!

Hey Obel - where is your avatar from (don't say Half Life or I will fucking kill you)

  On 8/19/2009 at 6:42 PM, Obel said:

Fuck it - You want to really be safe? Splash out on a Drobo http://www.drobo.com/ and buy two 1TB hard drives - RAID 1 the mother fuckers.

 

If one fails, take it out, get the manufacturer to send a replacement, plug it in the Drobo and it'll automatically rebuild the RAID. Cost you a few pennies, but it's awesome!

But your Drobo is physically located at the same place than your PC, no?. You'll lose everything if there's a fire or a flood or somebody steals your place. By having a cloned backup somewhere else (like at work), you are 100% safe.

  On 8/19/2009 at 8:21 PM, Philip Glass said:

  On 8/19/2009 at 6:42 PM, Obel said:

Fuck it - You want to really be safe? Splash out on a Drobo http://www.drobo.com/ and buy two 1TB hard drives - RAID 1 the mother fuckers.

 

If one fails, take it out, get the manufacturer to send a replacement, plug it in the Drobo and it'll automatically rebuild the RAID. Cost you a few pennies, but it's awesome!

 

 

But your Drobo is physically located at the same place than your PC, no?. You'll lose everything if there's a fire or a flood or somebody steals your place. By having a cloned backup somewhere else (like at work), you are 100% safe.

Yeah, that's true. I was taking hardware degradation into consideration - not disaster recovery.

And Tessier, it's Half Life.

those 1TB jobs sound good, and I guess I'd have to get two. But if I want to play music off of it in itunes will they be extremely slow? I have a 160gb HD that gets painfully slow when you actually want to listen to some of my zillions of mp3 files.

Another question is, what is flash memory? is it coming soon to hard drives? i don't want some awesome new technology to make me jealous after I spend all my money.

  On 8/19/2009 at 9:16 PM, Hanratty said:

those 1TB jobs sound good, and I guess I'd have to get two. But if I want to play music off of it in itunes will they be extremely slow? I have a 160gb HD that gets painfully slow when you actually want to listen to some of my zillions of mp3 files.

 

Another question is, what is flash memory? is it coming soon to hard drives? i don't want some awesome new technology to make me jealous after I spend all my money.

No, as long as you're using a USB2 or similar high-speed connection, the transfer rate should be just fine for listening to music off it.

Flash memory hard drives (or SSDs as they are referred to) are basically like your iPod Nano and other devices that use memory to store data rather than a physical hard drive with platters. The advantage is no moving parts, so no wearing down and breaking, and can be very, very small in comparison to a HDD. The biggest problem with them right now is price per GB, and that they suffer from slowdown over a period of time due to constant write/rewrite cycles. Speed wise, they are sometimes slightly faster than a HDD, but not worth the cost (sometimes triple the cost for less GB).

  On 8/19/2009 at 8:32 PM, Obel said:

And Tessier, it's Half Life.

.... hate.. . . you . . . guys. . . . .srsly

that drobo shit is ridiculous. it does exactly the same thing as a linux box for about $1300 more (for the cheapest model).

if you are serious about data backup and access speed, get a shitty computer, toss in a bunch of drives, load some form of linux and raid away. there are a thousand online guides.

if you are not so serious, just get a TB external or 2 if you want a backup

I'm currently using a lacie (1TB), I had no problems so far.

  On 8/19/2009 at 10:42 PM, theSun said:

that drobo shit is ridiculous. it does exactly the same thing as a linux box for about $1300 more (for the cheapest model).

 

if you are serious about data backup and access speed, get a shitty computer, toss in a bunch of drives, load some form of linux and raid away. there are a thousand online guides.

 

if you are not so serious, just get a TB external or 2 if you want a backup

$1300? Surely you jest. My suppliers do the cheapest ones for around £250 and I know the exchange rate ain't THAT fucked!