Cloud

RAID (as most use it) is NOT data backup.  It is only a drive backup.

Good idea! Best reason for buying Naim.128kbps sounds real nice on the SU. Money well spent! I'd put all your music into the cloud. At least that way you won't lose it. 

Cheerio & ATB!

Hi pjbeeb,

I am sorry that you had NAS issues, a true pain in the posterior. I think we ALL have had issues with storage.

I recently changed my NAS. I had backed the contents up to a series of external USB HDDs, that I then store with a friend who lives nearby. It took about five days to complete the transfer. I dread to think how long it would have taken me from a web based service; or the cost for 11GB of storage.

PC is, of course, right, that RAID is about resilience and perhaps thoughput, not backup.

The cloud can provision resilience, backup ....and many other things - or at least be described as many things depending on the sales literature you are reading. I generally think of the term 'the Cloud' as sales talk - and immediately start listening VERY closely to what is being claimed.

I think you should consider what you want to get from 'the cloud', and then you should do some tests.

Can you set up Telstra as a source for your music renderer?

Does streaming from Telstra effect SQ?

What about when the rest of the family is using bandwidth?

How long does it take to copy data to Telstra?

If you wanted to get it back how long would that take - and are there charges involved?

How much does the service cost?

Although I would never use such a service I would be interested in your experiences.

Final thought: In using this service you will be TRUSTING in their infrastructure. Such services can and do fail. Do they back the data up? Look closely at whatever the small print in their contracts states.

M

hi pjbeeb not sure if this helps but i buy a lot of vinyl from amazon....about two month ago i received a email telling me as a valid customer all the music i had purchased had been put into a cloud which i can access from a app on my ipad, ok its only mp3 format but when connecting the ipad to my ndx i can access music from the cloud. so im assuming if you can get the app for whatever cloud you have you can access the mucis, hope that is of some help

Hi pjbeeb,

Not sure what you want to get out of the solution, is it for backup reasons only?

I have put around 700 ripped lossless CDs in the cloud, using one of the well known cloud providers. The main reason I did that was because I have my two systems in different locations/networks and it was a pain to keep everything up to date in both places when adding ripped CDs.

Now I just add the CDs to my cloud folder and they are automatically uploaded and synced. I have pointed Asset UPnP to the Cloud folder on my PC. Works like a treat. That's one of the nice things with cloud, it really works and looks as a local folder on your PC.

I would probably not be looking at a cloud solution only for backup, at least not if you need lots of storage, a dedicated backup disk is more cost efficient. I am happy to pay for cloud storage as the benefits for me outweigh the costs and upload time.

I'm still using the internet. I must upgrade to the cloud at some point. Having copies of valuable stuff stored remotely (I use old fashioned remote servers) is a good stratagem for anyone. I personally would not attempt to play files from a remote location because I don't have to, it introduces potential complications and it's a huge waste of bandwidth IMO. However, if I ever became convinced that playing from a remote location gave better quality playback, I wouldn't hesitate.

I had a quick look at the amazon cloud player, it plays remotely or you can download any individual album or song.

I am using Dropbox and it works differently, it looks like any other folder on your computer. You are storing a copy of the cloud in a folder locally. Any changes are uploaded to the cloud and downloaded by other computers synced with the same cloud. It will also upload only the changes in a file. So if I for instance change a tag in a song, it will only upload the tag - neat trick.

So while I agree with Harry that I wouldn't try to play music remotely, I am instead using the cloud for easy access and keeping multiple music archives in sync. I am backing up monthly to an external drive but the cloud has saved me more than once when I have erased a song or album.

And if you point your UPnP server to your Dropbox folder it will play everying from your drive, not remotely.

Not sure how Telstra's cloud works.

What is the price for a cloud backup space to hold 1, or 2, tb of music?  It's been rather prohibitively expensive each time I've checked vs the cost of one more usb external drive.  And the number of days it would take up make the initial upload, and then download in the event it was actually needed as a backup, was not attractive.

I don't think that an external usb drive, housed off-site, can be bested as a backup.  Happy to learn otherwise however.

As for playing from 'the cloud,' this solves a problem I don't have, for the home hi fi.  When on the road, I do rely on 'the cloud' -- iTunes Match service.  It has a copy of my entire library in 256kbps AAC format, which I find just fine for an iPhone into a small desktop speaker as found in many hotel rooms or that I might bring with me on holiday.  And it's $25/year. 

I don't know the price for 1 TB, then you are into a 'business' account so probably quite expensive. For backup it is hard to beat a USB drive. I am only using a 200 GB account to host some of my lossless music in 2 locations. Now with WiMP HiFi I might have to rethink my strategy...  but it works great.

The initial upload took days...

You can get 1TB of cloud in Europe for £300pa or 200GB for £60. Prices are falling and it will be cheaper still in the US.

I think the real issue is not whether backup to a USB HDD is cheaper but whether people actually back-up regularly and keep the HDD off-site when not backing up. I suspect the answer to both is no in most cases. The cloud allows for this indiscipline.

IMHO this whole trend of storing your data in the cloud is bollocks. A need that doesn't exist, created by the industry / leading IT companies. At least for non business use that is. Why would you want to store your data in an off-site location? Large corps are running out of revenue streams, so let's create a need. And the stupid sheep that is Joe average falls for it and thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, when it's just another way to make money. Also, the environmental impact is huge! Data storage farms from every provider consuming huge amounts of energy and material resources. It's a trend I am definitely not going to support. At the end of the day each and every one of us has to take responsibility for his/her own consumption of resources and contribution to consumption over all. It's about time we all started thinking about what's really needed. Not every fad is. Each to his/her own. Not wanting to lecture here just putting a different perspective on this topic. 

What's more, is any of the cloud service out there today even able to provide CD quality data, let alone 24/96 or 192 hires? If not what's the point of spending money on a Naim system. A bit schizophrenic really, isn't it?

In case there is a major problem on-site. Flood, pestilence...that kind of thing.

All of them can manage CD quality and hi-res as these are just files.

Of course, I forgot those floods swamping our living rooms on a regular basis....

Makes sense. Got to be prepared for all eventualities. 

Probably best to get started on building one of those nuclear bunkers out in the back yard. Once done get food supplies for storage that last at least six months, until the nuclear cloud has passed. I think you can get them with BB Internet connection nowadays. At least that way I'll be able to play my music on the bunker system. 

Will Qobuz and HD Tracks still be online then? I hope so...

Yeah, but can they be served in real time, i.e. streamed by a Naim streamer?

Hmmm, with 40MB FLAC downloads lasting several seconds I am not sure if streaming from the internet is possible. Despite our dreams, perhaps throughput speeds for streaming approaching 0.2 MB/s will remain the stuff of science fiction?

Unknown but unlikely I'll grant you. I've heard many Americans express a belief that long after the human race has gone, they will endure - with the roaches, so maybe HDT might somehow survive. That remains to be seen.

However, the pollerification in online availability of music has been a revelation. I understand the need to have it backed up but having 100% faith in for example, Naim's ability to recover your music from a thrashed US or HDX seems as misplaced as believing that the "cloud" (whatever that is) will preserve your possessions intact forever. More logical to have your own arrangements in place for storage and redundancy, regardless of what online services claim to deliver.

Because you can stream crap quality material over an internet connection, this new paradigm seems to have run away with the possibility that you can theoretically stream anything. Which you can't, of course. And if the bandwidth expanded to such an extent that it was possible to get 24/96 and higher reliably streamed down, why on earth would you want to? All it would take is one press of a remote delete button to balls it up completely. Never mind a global catastrophe.

Call me paranoid - I suspect the hand of the labels at work to an extent. By convincing a new generation that they don't need to physically own artistic material, it makes it easier to control distribution, make us pay multiple times for essentially nothing and gives them the leverage to make us live according to what they believe the world should resemble, as opposed to what we are entitled to. If you abandon entitlement through ignorance and/or disinterest it will at some point be taken away.

I also agree that it's an appalling waste of bandwidth. But it seems that bandwidth is there to be wasted, just because we can. Lazy - but that's just my £0.02. 

Save the cloud for syncing calendars and contacts between devices.

For backing up your music, I recommend Crashplan, an external hard drive, and a friend. They have an option to backup locally to a hard drive, then you can mail that hard drive to your friend and start backing up over The Internet to that friend where you left off. Works a treat! They give you their hard drive and you can back each other up. If there's ever a fire or flood, you've got a (hopefully) reliable friend who can overnight the drive to you when you're in need.

Thank you all for feedback regarding the 'cloud'. However, interesting as they are, most responses didn't address my actual question: can the Superuniti play music directly from files stored on the cloud? My music collection is physical CD's (not files I've purchased or stolen), but given I've backed them up mostly at 256, I was interested in the option of playing them directly which can be less of a hassle compared with loading / unloading CD's.

I don't know if my answer was clear but it depends. I don't know how Telstra's cloud works.

If it stores all files only in the cloud like amazon cloud player and you have to play your music remotely, it probably won't work (I say probably because I have never tried but I suspect you will run into problems)

If it stores all files in the cloud with a synced local copy on your computer like Dropbox, it works fine. I am using it on a daily basis.