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External Drive Help

Hi All,

I had a surprise yesterday when my external drive - a Western Digital 1TB My Passport suddenly refused to recognise certain of my music folders (high-res and DSD downloads). I also received an error message - cyclic redundance check. Fortunately after running tools and check disk, the drive started working again and I re-imported the missing music files in JRiver.

This external drive is connected to my Baetis Server and plays music (mainly CDs ripped to FLAC using DB Poweramp) through the JRiver software. However, I am also starting to download more music over the web and this issue got me thinking as to how I might improve my back up system as these downloads have no physical media back up like a CD.

Currently as per Baetis` recommendations, I rip music to a separate external drive on my laptop using DB Poweramp or I download directly from websites like HD Tracks - in each case this music is transferred to My Passport External Drive. In addition, every time I download new music I manually copy across these files to a Seagate 4TB back-up hard drive.

Do you think I could be doing anything better in terms of handling files? I suspect it becomes a matter of how much redundancy I am prepared to pay for but interested to hear from people with more experience. It would also be great to be able to configure the Seagate back-up drive to copy certain files automatically from the My Passport drive but not sure this is possible.

Thanks in advance

James
vicks7
yioryos's avatar
yioryos
723 posts
 
Hi Vicks7
I am not an expert,have read pages upon pages over the years on this topic and seems to me,that,people who know their way around with computers trying and explain it,in such a way that make it so hard to understand and follow instructions through.
Here is my method for better or worst.
Music is on my main hard drive,a WD My Passport Studio 1TB.
Then this drives is backed up on another WD My Passport 1TB.
The second drive stays disconnected and only gets hooked to my Mac for back up of new files added on the primary drive.
Then an extra back up to WD My Book Live 2TB exists over WiFi.
Finally a Lacie 3TB acts as 4rth back up that is also serving music to my macmini i5 server/JRiver music player.
A few months ago I bought a Assustor NAS (two bay) along with one WD Red Seal 4TB hard drive.
I haven't used it yet and still remains in its carton,I am getting a second WD Red Seal 4TB soon and will get it all set up. But I know already it will be a challenge for me and my limited knowledge with networking.
I have not figure out yet (even though it was explained to me) how to perform an automatic back up update of new files added from one drive to another. I believe it's called rsync this or the other.
I still do back ups manually,you know it works and it's not so bad.
Sorry for the long post.
George
zd542
5,339 posts
 
The first thing I would recommend you do is get rid of any WD drives. They're very slow and extremely unreliable. There's not too many people that make HD's anymore, but of all the common brands, I think Seagate is the best. So, If it were me, I would just get Seagate drives, both internal and external. I would also get an good surge suppressor with a battery back up. You can get a nice one for about $100 to $150.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,677 posts
 
I have two of the QNAP NAS boxes with the same library on
each and keep them at different locations. They update
each other over ethernet (slow) or by my taking a 4tB HD
from one to the other.

I have a couple of the 1-2tB portable drives for casual
loads.

P.S.: I used them with a Baetis, too.
vicks7 OP
182 posts
 
Thanks all - very helpful. I had not appreciated that the WD drives were unreliable. I will look into this. The QNAP looks a beast and I will read up more about this.

Kr4 - what have you moved on to after the Baetis?
sufentanil's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
sufentanil
782 posts
 
Zd542, I disagree with the blanket statement that WD are unreliable. They make some great drives (as does Seagate). The key understanding is that all hard drives will fail eventually.

Consequently, an automated backup solution IS A MUST. I recommend Crashplan, which has unlimited backups to locally-connected drives, drives on your friends' computers (encrypted so that they can't see your data), and online at Crashplan's central data storage. They have unlimited data storage plan; I have easily 3-4 TB backed up on their servers (and my other computers in my private network).

I would invest the time to have a solid backup strategy before sinking any more money or time into music downloads or CD rips. It will pay dividends in the future, as you've just learned.

Michael
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