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How to manage a big itunes library?

I have had a mac mini running itunes for about 2 1/2 years now. The inevitable has happened, my first drive has failed, at least it's icon has stopped showing on the desktop and I can't access the files.

I had a feeling this would eventually happen. I have the files backed up, but this does create a headache to fix it. The files were originally ripped on 250GB drives and the backups are on 500s. I have 5 250GB drives and one 500GB drive, all pretty much full. I have a pretty big collection, about 5000 or so CDs.

I need advise on a solid solution for this type of setup. There are some pretty big drives comming out but I just don't know what would be the best option.

Also this might seem stupid, but I am wondering if there would be any loss in quality in a copy of the original rip vs the original???
128x128ejlif
jwynacht
20 posts
 
And speaking of storage, good articles to read here:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/21/1716207

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/21/2126252
ejlif's avatar
ejlif OP
1,370 posts
 
Yeah I'm getting the firewire version.
thomasedison
34 posts
 
This sounds like a good solution, and I see good deals currently on that WD Mybook. If you are planning to upgrade your Mac in the next couple of years you may want to keep the following in mind about Firewire drives.

Apple just phased out Firewire in their new aluminum MacBooks. So far their other current models still have Firewire, but there is speculation that they are planning on eliminating FW from their other model upgrades. See this article:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/the-macbook-makeover/?em
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,700 posts
 
If you think the hard drive to PC via firewire sounds good... you should hear firewire to dac. WOW...

USB was never intended to transmit misuc. Firewire is.
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Hopefully, the omission of Firewire 400/800 from the MacBook might just be a prelude to newer Apple devices utilizing Firewire S1600 or Firewire S3200.

I've never been a fan of USB. USB 1.0 was terrible, but 2.0 is better. It'll be interesting to see how things sort once USB 3.0 is in mass usage.

In pure performance terms Firewire S3200 and USB 3.0 should be almost 4 times faster than current Firewire 800, so it'll be interesting to see how they stack up in real world usage.

Are there any DACs that can utilize a fibre channel equipped Mac?
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