SD Cards?

I dont see the problem with the Hard drives - mine sit in my NAS drive. Quiet and out of the way. I'm sure though George that solid state is the way ahead. No mechanics and very low power.

James

quote:

I ask because it seems to me that Hard Drives of the conventional sort are more or less horrible in every way

Why?

I have no issues with SD cards, but don't understand your view on hard drives. I've got a Terabyte of NAS in the loft which works perfectly.

Dear James,

And silent in function ...

Realy this idea would also work in conjunction with a solid state Mac Air as well.

No need for a large internal drive if I implemented this plan.

It is only an idea, but I was struck by how well the SD card worked on a video, so thought it might have potential for music as well ...

Easy for backing up as each card could be doubled and stored separately, but if one ever went wrong then it is only a part of the liibrary that is requiring rescue from the back-up ...

Thanks from George

HI George,

Yes, solid state is probably the way to go, but at the moment capacities are on the small side and costs are too high.

For example, a look at a place I get some bits from lists a 128Gb 2.5inch drive at 180.00, and 256Gb drives from 520.00. To put that into context the drives in the HDX are a pair of 400Gb 3.5inch drives, retailing at about 40.00 each

Small, quiet, very low power servers or PCs are more than doable, in fact I was looking at one today that would give 1Tb,(1000Gb) of storage space, only consumes between 7-12w of power! runs SqueezeCenter to feed a Squeezebox or Transporter, and apart from the drive is silent.

With a good drive it might only be 20-22db, just about possible to hear. Retails at about 350.00.

So solid state is the way to go, but I think it'll be a little while coming.

John

Dear Dave,

Of course using solid state for a Terabyte of storage would be daft in money terms!

But at most I would only want about 500 CDs' worth of music stored.

The rest can continue to comes as now, on the radio.

ATB from George

VLC is terrible in terms of user friendliness.

Dear John,

The cost - on a big scale anyway - is incredible, but I think that I could start incrementally, as the individual SD cards are not a huge amount - I could buy and back up - and rip my CDs gradually ... and when I have the time and money gradually finish the conversion to SD storage from CD.

I would think the WAV files should be preserved rather than using any conversion format - loseless or not.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
VLC is terrible in terms of user friendliness.

Dear Gary,

Strange as it may sound as I am the world's worst driver of computers, and have failed to make work both EAC and Media Monkey, I actually have found VLC a relative doddle!

A nice robust bit of software that works well enough for me on video and the few downloaded [legally] MP3 music files that I have.

I mostly use it to watch DVDs on the PC and in that case it starts entirely without me doing anything, except driving it from the DVD menu when that loads ...

So perhaps its camel excercising aspects are forgiven when it comes to MP3s, where it is a good deal less handy, though much better sounding than Windows Media Player, at least to these ears.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:


Only an idea?

What does anyone think?

ATB from George

I think it is a fantastic idea. But I would go with USB sticks/flash drive. You could use them on anything. Whereas with the SD, miniSD, microSD etc, you never know when one will be obsoleted, or what machine actually accept them, and then which ones?

You could use these it appears with an HDX, and Naim DAC if you were to ever get one. Think down the road here..... Maybe in 5 or 6 years you will be able to grab an HDX for $1000.

Also, you could easily label flash drives so you would know what they contain.

Lastly, I saw 2GB flash drives for $15 online the other day, and 4GB for $25. This is by no means the most budget friendly either.
I bet you could get a bulk discount if you bought 20 or so.

It wouldn't be my personal choice, but I think it is a great idea for you! My Seagate Free Agent Pro drive is DEAD silent, even with an ear pressed to the case. 1.5TB on sale for $150 around here. And I dont personally buy into the fact that a hard drive sounds different from another.

In previous threads I joked about using an "audiophile grade" router if streaming music. I made the joke in an effort to shed light on people wanting "audiophile grade" ethernet cables, USB cables etc... The peeps who took it seriously dismissed it as a complete non-factor. I laughed right back becasue people think different streamers sound different.

In any event... Screw spending money on a Mac mini. Spend it instead on some flash drives and some new CDs!!! Then the new Naim DAC after you fall in love with it.

-Patrick

George,

The music folder on my NAS is 118Gb - My music library statistics are 322 albums with 4722 songs by 178 artists, so less than you anticipate needing to store.

I just had a look on Dabs and 32Gb SD cards are £201 - 16Gb are more cost effective at £64, but I'd need 8 of them to store all my data - 16 to keep a backup copy of everything to avoid ripping again if one became corrupt.

If noise is the only concern on hard drives, most houses have somewhere out of the way (out of earshot) that can house the drives. I still think there are easier solutions than ripping to SD.

Dave

quote:

You could use these it appears with an HDX, and Naim DAC if you were to ever get one. Think down the road here..... Maybe in 5 or 6 years you will be able to grab an HDX for $1000.

This does not look like such a mad idea after all!

Thanks Patrick. Great idea you gave me there!

ATB from George

quote:

The music folder on my NAS is 118Gb - My music library statistics are 322 albums with 4722 songs by 178 artists, so less than you anticipate needing to store.

Dear Dave,

I reconned that ten cards would do me [for 400 CDs] so twenty considering back-up.

But Patrick makes a valid point about USB Flash memory as well.

More to think about.

Thanks for you thoughts.

ATB from George

George,

VLC is ok huh??? I used it for a bit when looking for my ideal player. There is also an iPhone/iPod Touch application that works ok as -well.

If looking for a single program for everything from music to video and pics, VLC is a reasonable choice.

Also if you go with the PC method, you have the world at your doorstep in terms of, well, everything.

You would then be able to use ANY player, ANY codec, ANY ripping method you desire.

I can EASILY, EASILY help you get EAC configured correctly, provided you can follow basic instructions. Then ripping consists of putting in the disc, and pressing F6.

Dont try to understand what and how something like EAC works. It is a "set it and forget it" type of deal.

I personally go through a couple of extra steps when I rip a disc, takes literally 25 seconds more than pressing F6 only. But I want perfect gap detection, and a cue file. If you dont care for either, it is a one button job.

anytime you want a hand with it I would be more than happy to help.

We could simply log into a yahoo chat or something and I would give you each step, one at a time. Something like:
- Press F2
- UN-Check Box that says "Ensable use of C2 Pointers"
- Check box for "Secure Mode"
- Hit OK
- Press F1
- Cut and Paste the Following into "Tagging method" - x-y-z-1-2-3.
etc, etc, etc.

It wouldn't take more than ten minutes and you would be dialed in forever.

All I need in advance is the exact part number/Model# of your ripping drive so I can get the correct "read offset" for you.

I extend this offer to everyone interested but intimidated by setting it up.

Same goes for Foobar, the best player/renderer ever... which by the way can be EASILY setup to be a UPnP server/renderer for use with the UNITI!!!

-Patrick

George,

The USB flash drives are definitely the way to go if your not using standard hard drvies. Who knows what will accept the "cards" you might get. Surely you could get a "card reader" and carry it around with you. But it would be far easier to grab a couple USB sticks and head down to your dealer for a Naim DAC demo!

Additionally, most (even really cheap) car stereos have a USB input which work wonderfully with flash drives.

I have one (Micro i think) in my camera and it works on about 1/3 of the printers out there and even fewer computers. I always need to plug the camera in to get the pictures off. This defeats the whole purpose of having removable media in the first place.

Regarding backup.... definitely get a standard drive for this. You can pull it out as needed and backup any new files you've accumulated. Also since you are backing up your own rips you always have the original discs as the ultimate backup.

I just looked online and saw pricing as low as $7 for a 4GB flash drive.


Have fun with it!
-Patrick

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
The cost - on a big scale anyway - is incredible, but I think that I could start incrementally, as the individual SD cards are not a huge amount - I could buy and back up - and rip my CDs gradually ... and when I have the time and money gradually finish the conversion to SD storage from CD.

An easier, and probably better option, if you do not have excess space on your PCs hard drive is to add one of the external hard drives, the smaller capacity (<320Gb) tend to be based on 2.5inch laptop drives. Just about silent, powered by the USB port that they plug in to. 250Gb would be about 50.00 mark, and hold over 320 CDs worth of WAV files, nearly 600 in a lossless format.

quote:

I would think the WAV files should be preserved rather than using any conversion format - loseless or not.

OK, but it doubles your space requirements.

quote:

Strange as it may sound as I am the world's worst driver of computers

The two easiest ripping programs I have used are
(a) iTunes, wh8ich I hate as it gives no feedback or control, and doesn't deal with FLAC lossless.
(b) dbPoweramp, brilliantly easy, does pretty much all formats, accesses 4 different databases for the track info and album art and auto checks the quality of the rip.

Drop me a email if you want a word of advice on the PC config side, my email address is in the profile.

Cheers

John

quote:

A most simple PC could be arranged with the lightest possible software platform and OS but with an excellent digital out to feed my Lavry D10 ...

Mac Mini it is then George - iTunes just works, rips fine and the mini is silent - as i put in another thread my 250 makes more noise.

The 4Gb ones are cheap as chips these days - £6.71 is the cheapest on Dabs - and there are certainly cheaper sites.

Dave,

What codec are you using for your rips you mention above?

I am guessing that George will want FLACs or ALACs, otherwise he will not have tags.

ONCE AGAIN, Seagate Free Agent Pro drives are SILENT. 5 year warranty. relatively inexpensive.

My car makes more noise than a Mac Mini. Doesn't tell us much.

Fixed,

The whole point of George's question regards an alternative storage method from spinning hard drives.

Which i think is a great idea if you dont have a huge collection, and listen to music the way George seems to.

And I am not sure you are correct that it would be cheaper.

Regardless of my SILENT externals which i LOVE. I still use flash drives all the time to move things around, bring music on the road etc... Otherwise I would have to convert to MP3 and jam it on my iPhone.

-Patrick

I rip with dBPoweramp to FLAC.

Hi Patrick

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
The whole point of George's question regards an alternative storage method from spinning hard drives.

His reference to spinning drives was to DVD drives, which I'm sure you'll agree are usually far nosier than a 2.5" external.

quote:

Which i think is a great idea if you dont have a huge collection, and listen to music the way George seems to.

George says that he has 400 plus CDs, and specifically stated he wanted to keep the files as WAVs. Depending on how full each CD is 400 CDs worth of WAVs could be 250-280GB, if the CD collection goes to 500 that could be 350Gb.

quote:

And I am not sure you are correct that it would be cheaper.

Point me in the direction of 300Gb of solid state storage for 50.00gbp, please.

quote:

Regardless of my SILENT externals which i LOVE. I still use flash drives all the time to move things around, bring music on the road etc... Otherwise I would have to convert to MP3 and jam it on my iPhone.

I think you mean NEAR silent Even the manufacturers don't claim to be totally silent.

John

quote:

Originally posted by DaveBk:
I rip with dBPoweramp to FLAC.

Me too, it's an absolute joy.

John

quote:

Originally posted by DaveBk:
I've got a Terabyte of NAS in the loft which works perfectly.

Dave, is that above or below the insulation? Or do you have a way of monitoring the drive temps. The loft can be pretty hostile in the summer.

John

Actually in Garage loft, with thermostatically controlled fans that draw cool air in from outside.