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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
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?
blackstonejd
153 posts
 
The best solution would be to use a networked attached storage chasis, onboard RAID controller or expansion slot based RAID controller and build what is called a "RAID 1" array.

RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive drives. Raid level 1 is designed so that all of your data is recorded to one drive and is automatically mirrored to the second drive. In the event that one of your drives fails, you can rebuild your array and recover all of your data by just replacing the single drive.

This requires two identical enterprise class hard drives, in this case I would use either two 750GB drives or 2 1TB drives and RAID 1 them for a secure vault for your music files. Both drives would have to fail simultaneously for you to loose data. Note that your total storage capacity remains at 750GB or 1TB, depending on the size of the drives used, because the second drive is merely a mirror of the first.

This is how IT professionals store data securely--although they do it on a larger scale. Your network and operating system will see the drive array as a single drive.
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