Music Back Up Suggestion

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dhruvrock2000

ex-Mod
Hey Guys ,

This is an issue which has been bugging me for years now... My music collection , while not too big at 350GB or so , is very special to me as it is a carefully assembled collection of my favorite artists. I have spent a MASSIVE amount of time in getting the covers , tags right.

A lot of this music is in FLAC / WMA Lossless and about 35% in MP3 (mostly 320kbps) .

Source : Mostly from CDs and from Vinyl as well. I don't have access to the physical media now unfortunately.

I'm very very worried about HDD failures and losing my music collection. I have a bi-monthly backup scheme to an external HDD and a month or so old copy on 2 different laptops BUT i'm still not satisfied.

iTunes Match seems like a blessing in disguise ( yes i am willing to drop down to 256kbps AAC ) BUT iTunes does accept FLAC / WMA Lossless music.

I have looked into the Amazon Cloud Drive but not only is it expensive $500 for 500GB but it is not feasible to upload 350+ GB of music. This is exactly why iTunes Match appealed to me.

Now is there some solution for me or am i screwed ? Do not suggest another local backup ! I need a cloud solution.

-Dhruv
 
I am not talking from experience, but from hearsay, that Amazon's Cloud Drive has been recommended to be better and cheaper than the Apple thingie in this regard. Apparently you need to buy some music from them (?) to get unlimited free storage. Did you check on the exact details or are you going by the $20 for 20GB rate?
 
^^ They do give free music support BUT the desktop app does not recognize ANY lossless music. So to even get it to recognize my music i will have to downscale from FLAC to mp3
 
This is what I suggest, because this is what I do for my music collection which comes to around 450gb.

1. Use a music organizer/manager tool like: MediaMonkey - Gold

2. Use a NAS device like D-link's DNS323 to store music. Use two 1TB HDDs and configure the DNS for RAID 1 or 5 mode of operation. This NAS device can be connected to y'r home network for music sharing and centralized management. This gives first level protection of HDD failure

3. Use another 1TB HDD (as external device) and take a separate back-up of complete music collection into this external device. Pack this device well and store safely and at a separate location. Remember to sync this collection with your primary database in NAS from time to time.

4. Make a list of really rare songs and prepare cd's of those. In my case it came to around 10CDs. Keep these CDs safe.

You should be all set for most of bad situations. At least I have been able to maintain this for around 10yrs. (only be up to date with technologies like external HDD to NAS and then to may be iNAS after that may be cloud)
 
Dude use CrashPlan.

Now, whats good about crashplan is, its free and fulfill all your needs hopefully.

Install crash-plan on multiple computers in the same network and configure the folders you want to make backup.

So now, crash-plan will sink all those folders in all the other computers in the LAN freely and in realtime. If you like to know anything more PM me...or goggle it. :)
 
@manoj : Expensive solution but looks worth it. I'm gonna investigate it further.

@agantuk : Let me try that out :)

@mehta_april : Local syncing is not an issue. I need an offsite and preferably cloud backup to download everything.

@Others : Does MediaMonkey transcode to ALAC while maintaining all tags ? I have Media Monkey Gold and if it does then i can transcode all FLAC to ALAC and use iTunes with that.
 
You have already backed up your collection on an external drive and 2 different laptops you say and you are still worried? Yep, you are paranoid.

An easier solution would be to just back it up on multiple blu-rays not that you need it but hey whatever keeps you at peace.
 
I don't use Apple's iTunes or ALAC. So I don't have this problem. I use my ipods along with Mediamonkey to sync my music. I don't think Media Monkey 3.0 natively supports this. May be the following link may help you with your issue Best way to Convert FLAC files to Apple Lossless without losing your t - Hydrogenaudio Forums

I know it is a bit expensive, but I don't think there is anything else now technology wise, that can give you a better peace of mind.

As far as the Cloud computing goes, I believe this technology has a long way to go (especially for people of India) before the users can feel comfortable while affordably managing their large chunks of information residing in a cloud. I claim this with certain level of confidence because I happened be in the team which was responsible in deciding whether to move my client's data to cloud or not.
 
^^ Manoja2k : Completely agree hence why iTunes Match is particularly appealing and we all know that Apple is not going to disappear overnight :) Anyways , i'll look into that suggestion of yours to convert to ALAC.

@Bluffmaster : Took me 6 years to finally curate it and get exactly what i wanted. Hundreds of hours spent on tagging and album art. Yes i am paranoid.
 
2k on a 3.5 sata 500gb HDD.
Copy everything on it.
Wrap it back in its anti-static cover. Some thermocol for force majeure protection.
Tuck it away in some cupboard.

I've been backing up data on optical discs since 1999. I know now for sure that it was all for nothing. The discs deteriorate with time. They might have been preserved and kept in mint condition over the years but the pits and bumps on its surface have collapsed unseen to the naked eye.
 
broadway said:
...

I've been backing up data on optical discs since 1999. I know now for sure that it was all for nothing. The discs deteriorate with time. They might have been preserved and kept in mint condition over the years but the pits and bumps on its surface have collapsed unseen to the naked eye.
Click to expand...

^ I agree. But I have seen good quality CDs with slowest burning rate has yielded much better results. I had recorded some CDs in Sony CDRs (I think it was Goldline series or something like that, procured from USA) in the year 1999. These are perfectly fine even as of last month. Whereas I had some CompUSA CDs burnt with many of my songs for playing in my car stereo/disc man. These CDs went bad after around two years of usage.
 
dhruvrock2000 said:
^^ Manoja2k : Completely agree hence why iTunes Match is particularly appealing and we all know that Apple is not going to disappear overnight :) Anyways , i'll look into that suggestion of yours to convert to ALAC.
Click to expand...
I get the impression you are more interested in being able to stream your stuff from any internet connection rather than having an additional backup which in this case would be a bonus. Thats what a cloud implies first to me and backup is second.

Otherwise what you already have in terms of backup is more than enough.
 
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