Where to Store Files?

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ianbuckers
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by ianbuckers »

Lord Reith wrote: Mon Sep 05, 2022 9:29 am Also, people have had their online bootleg collections deleted by the host. Technically, uploading them breaks the T&C.
I concur not to rely on cloud storage for the reason above and the various other reasons mentioned on the thread and would agree with the suggestion that 2 separate Hard Drives is the way to go.

But kept in 2 separate places and you would need to access them both regularly to ensure the data integrity. I have one at work that I update with something most days and then I take it home once in a while and copy all the new and changed files to the other. I am arguably guilty of not doing the latter often enough though.

And as family members may not value the contents after your demise leave them in your will to someone who shares your passion!

My address to instruct your executor to send your HDs to is...
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billylentz
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by billylentz »

I´m currently using external HD. Just filled a 4TB HD and I´m upgrading it to a larger one. I´ll copy everything onto the new HD, then beging the processo again. This way, I always have at least a second backup of most of my stuff.

It´s not totally safe, but I think so far it´s the best we can get.
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alphabeatles
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by alphabeatles »

ianbuckers wrote: Mon Sep 05, 2022 12:05 pmI have one at work that I update with something most days and then I take it home once in a while and copy all the new and changed files to the other.
I use my portable 5TB as a "mule" between home and office – the master 8TB is backed up to the 5TB (minus the videos), the 5TB travels to the office where it is backed up onto the loose HDDs there (I suppose one of my extra 8TBs could be kept on that end, just thought of that!).

So this way the office backup never travels, nor does the master collection.
Nimbus
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by Nimbus »

No one has mentioned a NAS drive. I put everything on the NAS so I can access them via laptop, TV, hifi, tablets etc. I then make backups from the NAS on separate hard drives. Works well for me.
sam004
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by sam004 »

Love the NAS drives, but thanks to you guys, I filled them. :)

Winter project is to utilize either old PC or MAC or raspberry PI to function as a file server or NAS host.
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jxdxbx
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by jxdxbx »

My setup:

My main computer is an M1 iMac, with a 16 TB external hard drive. My Beatles folder on that drive is about 2 TB.

I have been an unlimited Backblaze customer for years, and I do occasional local snapshot backups onto spare hard drives. I highly recommend Backblaze, though it's worth noting that it will only back up local external hard drives, not NAS drives.

For all my non-Beatle music, I use the (Mac) program Swinsian to manage my actual music files. It's sort of like early iTunes, but much faster. It can deal with my multiple terabyte music library just fine. Other tools I use for music management are Mp3tag and X Lossless Decoder.

Then, this same iMac is also my Plex server. Plex used to be very bad at music, and I used Subsonic instead. Now, I think it's ok, especially if you can get the sonic analysis stuff working. This allows you to have pretty nice algorithmic playlists, as Plex will (and this takes forever) analyze the actual waveforms of your music files and try to figure out things that sound similar. And, one of my favorite features of Plex is "Random Album Radio," since obviously being such a hoarder it's hard to figure out what to actually listen to. It's worth using the separate "Plexamp" client for music, especially on the go. However I do end up having to switch the library it reads from from Music to Beatle Music, depending on what I want to listen to.

(Also I pay Plex for a premium account for remote access and convenient downloads for offline.)

Beatles stuff is another story. There, I just sort everything manually into folders--which saves a ton of hassle for a number of reasons, including that great-sounding bootlegs are still often tagged like shit.

Plex sees my Beatle stuff too, but it's not part of my main music or video libraries. There, I have one called "Beatle Music" and one called "Beatle Video." And I just browse these by folder. (I wish Plex had an "other audio" library type, as it does pointlessly try to get nice metadata off the internet for random Beatle bootlegs. This is pretty good for my normal music but with this stuff it's hopeless.)

Plex doesn't understand .vob files and I don't know of any TV apps (I use an Apple TV) that will load actual Video_TS folders as DVDs, with menus and everything. (Infuse can play vob files but does not load the interactive menu stuff.) So for that I use VLC on my computer. I think the menus are indispensable with these DVDs that are mostly collections of miscellany.

Then, finally, on my computer I tend to use IINA to listen to Beatles stuff from my manually organized folders. It's just a slick free app with many of the same capabilities as VLC.
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billylentz
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by billylentz »

Considering there´s not the perfect solution yet, I´m going for external HD. When it´s full, I replace it for a larger one, copy all the old content onto it and keep going. When the new HD is full, I star te cycle again. This way, I always have at least two sources for most of my archives.

I´m currently using a 8Tb Seagate Expansion drive.

That´s not perfect nor free of risks, but it´s what is possible.

Provided I could have unlimited affordable cloud space and reasonable connection speed, I´d also like to have a on-line backup. We can´t have it yet, but maybe in a not so far future.
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jxdxbx
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by jxdxbx »

Yeah, another aspect of this hobby is your basic connection speed. I have a gigabit fiber connection, but even so, cloud backup can take forever at first. Many months. But, in the event of data loss, Backblaze will FedEx you a hard drive, which you can return (at no cost to yourself but shipping).
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ruedabeat
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by ruedabeat »

For years I´ve been burning CDs/DVDs filled with Data, I mean Wavs, Flacs, Txts, MP4, Movs, Images, etc. Now I´m filling HDs and sometimes I´m still burning Data DVDs. I´m even giving copies of my DVDs to my brother as a way to recover the Data in case of disaster, some of them are copies of mainly the great projects done by members within the Forum. Anyway, there's always someone in the Forum who can help us to recover a file whenever is needed. :geek:
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Lord Reith
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Re: Where to Store Files?

Post by Lord Reith »

Cloud backups scare me. You're only a password or a phone number away from being locked out. What really scares me is when you've been logging in one way for months, years or whatever, and then suddenly one day out of the blue they throw an extra hoop in your path for you to jump through... asking for a "recovery email" or an old disused phone number that are long gone. Then you're screwed.
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