https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/ Copyright (c) 2006-2013 Web Wiz Forums - All Rights Reserved. Sat, 11 Apr 2026 12:14:02 +0000 Tue, 29 Mar 2022 01:07:38 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 12.07 360 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/RSS_post_feed.asp?TID=5321 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum//images/Top-40-Music-on-CD-Forum-Logo.png https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/ https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60588&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60588 Author: The Hits Man
Subject: 5321
Posted: 29 March 2022 at 1:07am

Hykker wrote: Not sure I agree on SSDs for archiving though. Price per MB is still much higher than spinning disc drives, and if a regular drive fails, it usually does so gradually and you're often able to retrieve much of what you've stored. Any SSD I've had fail just became a paperweight with no warning whatsoever. Great in laptops for faster boot up and lower power consumption, but for storage, not for me. YMMV

The spinners are great for price per MB, but the one
thing to remember about SSD is that the larger the
capacity, the better they preform and the longer they
last. The technology has also come a very long way in
just a few short years. I am using a five-year-old ADATA
500 GB drive as my music work drive that I use for
editing and short-term storage and it still works
flawlessly. I also keep it trimmed. I use the hell out
of it and still haven't even used a third of its write
capacity. It used to be my boot drive in an older
computer.

But, i'm all about SSD where possible. I have a slot for
one more MvMe on my motherboard. I'd love to throw a 2TB
in there but they are still too expensive at the moment.

Other advantages for SSD of any type is that they consume
much less power and are impervious to shock.

As far as them going belly-up, i've never had that
happen. Just don't attempt to defrag them. You use up
writes that way.

In support of spinners, my main FLAC storage drive is a
10-year-old Western Digital Green drive. The reason it
has lasted so long is because it's a 5400 RPM drive, so
it runs quite cool.]]> Tue, 29 Mar 2022 01:07:38 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60588&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60588 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60565&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60565 Author: Hykker
Subject: 5321
Posted: 27 March 2022 at 4:40am

The Hits Man wrote: You can get an internal 4TB Western Digital Red drive for very good prices these days. I say red because, although they are made for NAS, they are very durable. SSD. To me, SSD is the way to go. If you don't do a lot of writes and just want a place to store your music, a QLC drive is perfect. They are not made for constant writing. If you get an m.2 NvMe, again, the QLC is great for storage.

Yeah the WD Reds (or Seagate Iron Wolf) NAS drives are a decent choice, as are the WD blacks (enterprise grade). I've
had both go 10+ years in servers where they're running 24/7/365.

Not sure I agree on SSDs for archiving though. Price per MB is still much higher than spinning disc drives, and if a
regular drive fails, it usually does so gradually and you're often able to retrieve much of what you've stored.
Any SSD I've had fail just became a paperweight with no warning whatsoever.

Great in laptops for faster boot up and lower power consumption, but for storage, not for me. YMMV]]> Sun, 27 Mar 2022 04:40:24 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60565&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60565 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60562&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60562 Author: The Hits Man
Subject: 5321
Posted: 26 March 2022 at 1:02am

I wouldn't bother with a cloud service at all. Just back
up your stuff to multiple drives.

An internal drive is fine is all you are putting on it is
your media, in other words, don't put it on a boot drive
or a partitioned drive. Just make sure you keep external
backups of that drive.

You can get an internal 4TB Western Digital Red drive for
very good prices these days. I say red because, although
they are made for NAS, they are very durable.

SSD. To me, SSD is the way to go. If you don't do a lot
of writes and just want a place to store your music, a
QLC drive is perfect. They are not made for constant
writing. If you get an m.2 NvMe, again, the QLC is great
for storage.

I have found any quality SSD to be very reliable, and
they last a very long time. Never defrag an SSD, but you
should have turned on, or run, the trim command. Windows
10 and 11 will have this on by default.]]> Sat, 26 Mar 2022 01:02:13 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60562&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60562 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60553&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60553 Author: eric_a
Subject: 5321
Posted: 23 March 2022 at 10:38am

Hykker wrote: As far as cloud storage goes, it doesn't really seem practical to me to transfer multiple TB of stuff to a cloud server, especially given the relatively slow internet speeds we get out here in Podunk. Maybe if you're in/near a major city and have really high speed internet, but still sounds like a long process.

Fair point - even (or especially?) here in LA, it took me
several months to upload 3-4 TB. But if that's a
dealbreaker for you, I see that iDrive has an option to
ship them your encrypted data on a physical drive to
avoid that bottleneck, at no extra cost. ]]> Wed, 23 Mar 2022 10:38:52 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60553&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60553 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60532&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60532 Author: Hykker
Subject: 5321
Posted: 22 March 2022 at 5:12am

AdvprosD wrote: I was reading another thread and noted someone mentioned losing a hard drive in a computer crash. I'm not sure what the storage volume was for their drive, but the question came to my mind as, "Was this person saving music on an internal PC drive?" As in previous posts here, I see that even as far back as 2010, many here had the idea to divorce the storage area from the main computer. whether it be a USB connected drive, or some other form of RAID configuration. These days, it would seem that there are a lot of companies competing to have you store multiple terabytes of data in their cloud service. Is anyone using this? And, is it now cost effective to do storage this way? I'm interested to know if folks are annually plunking down $$ for cloud storage as opposed to the ever increasing storage capacity of an external drive tethered to the computer.

I would hope that in 2022 no one is relying on the internal drive in their PC to be their only archive of valuable data, be it photos
& documents,
music or whatever though you do hear of people keeping lots of irreplaceable stuff in a cellphone.

I have a RAIDed NAS, plus multiple USB drives. I wish I could say I was as dilligent about backing up as I should be, but sometimes
it's way too
easy to put off incremental backups. Don't really have an off-site backup, the closest thing is that I'll keep one of the backups in
a detached
building on my property.

As far as cloud storage goes, it doesn't really seem practical to me to transfer multiple TB of stuff to a cloud server, especially
given the
relatively slow internet speeds we get out here in Podunk. Maybe if you're in/near a major city and have really high speed internet,
but still
sounds like a long process. And then you've gotta hope the cloud service provider doesn't go feet up, change their terms, etc.

As mentioned before, I think it's a better idea to store the music away from the main PC. It makes it a lot easier to save a collection after an OS crash.

Or at the very least, keep the OS on one drive, and any archive material on a second internal drive (though some compact PCs don't
allow for one).


Edited by Hykker]]> Tue, 22 Mar 2022 05:12:41 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60532&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60532 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60531&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60531 Author: eric_a
Subject: 5321
Posted: 22 March 2022 at 12:47am

AdvprosD wrote: These days, it would seem that there are a lot of companies competing to have you store multiple terabytes of data in their cloud service. Is anyone using this? And, is it now cost effective to do storage this way?

I took the plunge last year with iDrive, paying $80/year
for 5 TB, and the first year had a promo for only about
$10. They also have a 10 TB tier for $100. Carbonite
offers unlimited storage for about the same price.

For me, it's a small price to pay for the peace of mind of
having data stored offsite in case of mishap or disaster
at home (e.g., earthquake, fire, burglary).

To your point, there's always a chance a service like this
could disappear, but that hasn't kept me up at night.

Has anyone tried a DIY cloud service, i.e., you connect an
NAS drive at your friend's home for live syncs. Sounds
like minimal costs for upkeep except for maintaining the
hardware.]]> Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:47:17 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60531&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60531 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60529&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60529 Author: AdvprosD
Subject: 5321
Posted: 21 March 2022 at 10:27am

This topic took a bit of searching to find. I was about to open a new thread, but found this 12 year old one.

So, things have changed a bit in the area of external storage and especially, cloud storage.

I'm interested to hear what members are doing with their collections these days. I was reading another thread and noted someone mentioned losing a hard drive in a computer crash.
I'm not sure what the storage volume was for their drive, but the question came to my mind as, "Was this person saving music on an internal PC drive?"

As in previous posts here, I see that even as far back as 2010, many here had the idea to divorce the storage area from the main computer. whether it be a USB connected drive,
or some other form of RAID configuration. These days, it would seem that there are a lot of companies competing to have you store multiple terabytes of data in their cloud service.
Is anyone using this? And, is it now cost effective to do storage this way? I'm interested to know if folks are annually plunking down $$ for cloud storage as opposed to the
ever increasing storage capacity of an external drive tethered to the computer.

It's kind of weird to see these 16+ tb drives on the market these days. Though it sure is a lot of room to store stuff on, it also seems like a fast way to lose an entire
collection, if you were to use just one drive for the job. I think I know at least one person here using a RAID storage unit in conjunction with NAS technology. Since drives
actually don't last forever, I am probably going to gather all the stuff I have and put a multi-drive storage solution together using RAID. I've noted that a lot of the drives
themselves are equipped with a technology that continuously monitors the drive "health." That way, you can sometimes save data before the drive goes kaput!

I also have an account with Dropbox which offers a plan for "X" amount of storage for a monthly or annual fee. Dropbox has been around quite a while so, I don't think I'd
be concerned with the business going toes-up, without some kind of advance notice. I'm not sure I can store everything there. It might get costly.

As mentioned before, I think it's a better idea to store the music away from the main PC. It makes it a lot easier to save a collection after an OS crash.]]> Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:27:16 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=60529&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#60529 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=24865&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#24865 Author: aaronk
Subject: 5321
Posted: 13 January 2010 at 7:26pm

^ All great points! ^]]> Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:26:39 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=24865&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#24865 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=24861&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#24861 Author: anthology123
Subject: 5321
Posted: 13 January 2010 at 2:12pm

With all the anecdotes, and as another IT person here, I would also
recommend redundant hard drives to backup your music. I have 4 myself to
backup my 11,000 song library 4 times.
Also make sure you run disk utilities to check your hard drives before you
defrag them, and don't defrag unless you have another copy on another
hard drive, just good practice.
It might also be good practice to format a hard drive every once in a while
and then restore your backups back (from another hard drive) it would serve
to clean up bad spots on your drive or to see if the drive is failing.]]> Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:12:48 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=24861&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#24861 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=24801&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#24801 Author: Yah Shure
Subject: 5321
Posted: 07 January 2010 at 3:43pm

I second the motion for backing up hard drive collections. I keep the variable bitrate mp3 versions of my archived vinyl .wav rips on two HDs: an older Maxtor external and a portable mini drive that I can keep off-premises. The older drive is connected to the desktop from which I feed my micro-FM transmitter. This is my default mp3 setup for everyday listening via the radio.

Over the years, that Maxtor drive had become functionally full and highly fragmented, so I did a partial defrag some months back; partial in that some large files couldn't be moved. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the cross-fading winamp player was skipping over a number of the vinyl mp3s, so I checked the vinyl folder, and found that - with one lone exception - all mp3s by every artist beyond the letter "F" had vanished. I considered the idea that maybe I'd moved them to another drive in order to free up enough space to execute a full defrag, but I hadn't made any written notes to indicate that I'd actually moved those mp3s anywhere. I was hoping this was a hardware issue and not a brainware failure.

So I attempted another Maxtor defrag, but instead got an error message that there were disk errors, and to run chkdisk. I hadn't had any disk errors or run chkdisk in years, but did so, then ran a full defrag on the Maxtor. A quick check of the vinyl folder showed all titles from A to Z present and accounted for. Brain 1, hardware 0.

Fortunately, I'd had a redundant backup vinyl mp3 folder on the mini drive all along, but that incident served as yet another mental reminder of the importance of making regular backups.]]> Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:43:37 +0000 https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5321&PID=24801&title=back-up-your-valuable-cds#24801