best hard drive?
[307 byte] By [chazzie] at [2007-11-9 20:21:04] 
For running iTunes for Windows through a good stereo system, is there an advantage to using an internal vs. an external hard drive? I have a collection of a few hundred cds and plan to store them in apple lossless for maximum fidelity. For an external drive, is there an advantage of firewire vs. usb 2.0?
# 1 Re: best hard drive?
I use external Firewire drives for 2 reasons. 1: to keep the drives in a cabinet so sound doesn't effect my listening and 2: so that I can easily swap the "controlling" computer. Right now I have a dual 1-gHz G4 for batching AIFFs to ALE, but my normal computer is a quite little iBook.Lacie Big Drives work great for me. I use a RAID comprised of 3 400GB disks. I believe the 1TB disk, which is comprised of 4 disks in a single enclosure, can be configured for redundancy like a RAID.
jsterritt at 2007-11-15 16:42:52 >
# 2 Re: best hard drive?
do you keep a back-up of your itunes library? if so, how do you keep it synchronized?chazzie at 2007-11-15 16:43:52 >
# 3 Re: best hard drive?
Whether the drive is internal or external, or FireWire or USB, it won't make any difference in sound quality. The I/O bandwidth needed to play back audio is very low, so even a lowly 4200 rpm laptop drive can handle it fine. As for FireWire vs. USB 2.0, the speeds are roughly equivalent (Talking about FireWire 400, FireWire 800 is faster). The speed of the actual drive in your enclosure is the more important factor than the interface. External drives are more convenient to transfer to other computers, of course.HiRez at 2007-11-15 16:44:51 >
# 4 Re: best hard drive?
Originally posted by jsterritt I use a RAID comprised of 3 400GB disks. I believe the 1TB disk, which is comprised of 4 disks in a single enclosure, can be configured for redundancy like a RAID.
WOW 3 400GB drives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:
Mr94Supra at 2007-11-15 16:45:54 >
# 5 Re: best hard drive?
RAID 3 or 5 writes data across an array of disks so that if one fails, no data is lost. I will eventually add some kind of off-site backup, but it's pricey. The new Apple Lossless Codec may enable me to switch from AIFFs and cut my storage requirements in half!jsterritt at 2007-11-15 16:46:53 >
# 6 Re: best hard drive?
Do you all think that external drives are more prone to failure?chazzie at 2007-11-15 16:47:52 >
# 7 Re: best hard drive?
I prefer Firewire whenever possible, for lots of reasonsproper cooling is essential for external drives. every single case should have a fan unless you want to really shorten it's overall lifespan. heat kills components faster then anything else.
melk at 2007-11-15 16:48:56 >
# 8 Re: best hard drive?
Back up, back up, back up.Disks (any kind) rarely fail. Other problems like mysterious data loss (some Iomega drives are notorious for "misplacing" data on some OSs), fire and theft are factors to consider in addition to drive failure. Our music is not "mission critical" so many of us do not back up. You can play the odds and probably beat drive failure, but the odds of your vengeful ex, repo man, drunk buddy or favorite child eradicating your music collection can't be gauged. I use RAID 5 to ensure that one drive failure won't cost me a single track. Password protection goes a long way in minimizing other risks. I buy good drives. But I don't back up off site. And until I do, I'm only tempting fate.
By the way, fans make noise. Keep them out of your listening experience.
jsterritt at 2007-11-15 16:49:59 >
# 9 Re: best hard drive?
ok, if I buy an exterenal hard drive to store my music on, will a pc and a Mac both be able to read it? Right now I have a pc but I will be buying a Mac once they release a G5 iMac. I didn't know if there was any issues with how the drive is formated.Thanks
squirrelly at 2007-11-15 16:50:57 >
# 10 Re: best hard drive?
My simple solution to the question of music library backups...I have a 120Gb drive in my home server and an external 120Gb that I made from a plain ole drive and external enclosure (with a fan). I put usb 2.0 cards in the two machines for, like $20 each.
The external I keep at work (so I can have ALL my music there). Most weekends I bring the external home and sync the two with a freeware directory sync utility. I also do backups of all my machines to the external drive.
So I'm covered for disaster recovery (unless the distaster happens on a weekend when I have the drive home).
shindigo at 2007-11-15 16:51:58 >
# 11 Re: best hard drive?
do you have Firewire on your PC? if not you can add a PCI card cheaply, or buy an external Firewire/USB2 case.if you format it as FAT32 you can then copy all your music to it, and later plug it into your iMac and it will work just fine. Macs can read/write FAT32 with no problem, and Panther can read NTFS disks as well. Maybe Tiger will bring full read/write support for NTFS...
anyway, as reference here is a 160gb 7200rpm 8mb cache FW/USB 2 drive with cables for $200. if you don't mind doing so, you can possibily get a cheaper solution buying the drive + case seperatley
melk at 2007-11-15 16:52:57 >
# 12 Re: best hard drive?
Originally posted by melk do you have Firewire on your PC? if not you can add a PCI card cheaply, or buy an external Firewire/USB2 case.
if you format it as FAT32 you can then copy all your music to it, and later plug it into your iMac and it will work just fine. Macs can read/write FAT32 with no problem, and Panther can read NTFS disks as well. Maybe Tiger will bring full read/write support for NTFS...
anyway, as reference here is a 160gb 7200rpm 8mb cache FW/USB 2 drive with cables for $200. if you don't mind doing so, you can possibily get a cheaper solution buying the drive + case seperatley
So as long as I format the drive in FAT32 I won't have a problem?
Thanks, thats the answer I was looking for. Now I just need to figure out what drive, I am looking at LaCie 200GB EXT FW800/USB2 7200 HD, $240.00 and I guess I need some money now to. I will gladly take donations :)
Thanks
squirrelly at 2007-11-15 16:53:58 >
# 13 Re: best hard drive?
yep, the only consideration when using FAT32 on Macs is that the data on the drive needs to be cross platform - as in mp3's, movies, etc.. you won't be able to install Mac apps onto that drive/partition.I forgot to give the link before, here is just one place that sells FW/USB 2 drives
www.macsales.com (http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Page.cfm?Parent=680&Title=&Template=1)
melk at 2007-11-15 16:55:05 >
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