External hard drive for expanding iTunes library?

Yes, but... RAID 0 doubles the number of drives as well, and it doesn't give you any redundancy protection. Frankly, I've backed up my RAID 5 as well anyway--no way I want to rip that many CDs again and do all the indexing and get all the artwork. Once is enough...

Sure your friend's isn't on a hub versus a switch or something? At 16 mbps, it would have taken four days to back mine up, and it was overnight. Maybe I'm underestimating overnight using 8 hours, but I'm not underestimating by a factor of 10--it was overnight...

As far as building your own, I built my last computer and, while I won't claim to be any sort of computer genius (last system I built was a Z80 on an S100 bus), it isn't purely plug-and-play. I had to work out a fair number of oddball issues, and some of them took some time and research. Not sure everyone is up for that. I like the terastation b/c it is basically plug-and-play. Its not perfect--multiple access is a lot slower than my PowerVault, for example--but it is pretty good protection versus the consumer USB/firewire drives so many use. After the number of failures I've had with those, I'm much more comfortable with the idea of my catastrophic failure being two drives failing at the same time...

Guess everyone is going to have their own comfort zone here. Part of the reason I'd advocate not giving away or selling the original CDs. Those are, ultimately, the last backup...

I'm coming to this thread late, but I have a G-Drive 500G Q Drive to hold music files and use as a back up for my Mac Powerbook and Macbook Pro. I bought it for speed (FW800), reliability, and because it is fanless. I've been happy with the speed and reliability, but for a fanless HD, it is a bit noisier than I'd like. When I'm listening to music from iTunes, the hard disk is spinning and it is fairly loud. When I'm listening to music, it doesn't bother me, but when I'm trying to concentrate with no music, the drive noise seems pretty loud. I agree that RAID's are the way to go if you want the most reliability, since there is a backup built in if the drive fails. Nevertheless, RAID's are a pretty expensive option. I have an old cheap external I can use to back up my iTunes collection.

Howell, by now, you've probably spent some time with the G-Drive. What do you think?

Does anyone know where to find a review of noise ratings for different external hard drives?

Mark

I have had the drive about 6 months and I don't think it has gotten quieter. In fact, I've grown more sensitive to the sound, so it sounds louder, even though it probably isn't. I have it sitting next to my computer on the top of a desk. When I'm sitting at the computer, it is very noticable, but when I'm sitting in the listening chair, I don't notice it much. I think the laptop-sized hard drives are the quietest (but also most expensive) option. I'm not surprised your G-5 drive is quieter, since my other external drives are much quieter than the G-Drive. Most of the time drive speed isn't an issue for iTunes, so I may use my 250gb Porsche La Cie drive (which I thought was loud, but it is much quieter than the G-Drive) for listening and use the G-Drive for archival purposes. I also may try to keep a small version of the music server on my internal laptop HD, which is practically silent, and just use the G-Drive as a holding bay. For this purpose, the speed of the G-Drive should come in handy!

Have fun with it. It is a cool looking and high quality computer accessory, even though I wouldn't recommend using it in near field listening environments.

Mark

*sigh*

You bought a drive for reliability that doesn't have a fan? How hot is the case in terms of degrees over room temp? I really hope you consider backing up your data in another form...

In this vein, I'd also note that I can't hear my drive at all--because its hooked up to my network, not my computer. Which means its in a nice, cool basement a long, long way away from my listening position.

;)