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Digital Library - or Not? Needed?

Newbie here - so take it easy on me. Been browsing the forums and see quite the vitriol in some cases.

I have a system I'm happy with that streams hi res using commercial services that we all know about. Can access almost all my music preferences, as I'm not into rare/underground/etc., but most of my taste is commercial so can easily find on streaming services.

I also have a small CD collection since I was a youngster (lets say 200?), mostly of albums that one can easily find on my streaming services, with a few exceptions (like those of my personal music with bands I've been involved in).

I can't pinpoint a good reason to digitize the CD collection and turn into a digital library, except for the very few exceptions noted. But I have a "fear of missing out" (FOMO), which I'm sure most of us can relate to. Like... there must be a good reason to create the library and have access to it... but my rationale side says "why, when you have access already? And that access is hi-res files?"

Is there another good reason to create a FLAC library like this? Or is my logical brain making more sense than my emotional side?

Thanks!
fade6
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
Re: getting rid of your CDs. Well, my portable hard drive died a couple days ago.  I took it to a local computer fix-it joint to get it running again or, alternatively, to extract the files and put them in a new one. I've got both fingers & toes crossed.  Lots of old pictures.  Live recordings of me and my friends playing music.  Fires? Floods?  How about the vicissitudes of 21st Century electronic gizmos?  BTW, I had Qobuz merrily playing on the stereo as I was writing this note.  Moments ago, Stravinsky was replaced with silence.  Gimme physical media, please!
flrun's avatar
flrun
92 posts
 
I know two things from that comment; your portable drive had a traditional drive with spinning platters, and you don't backup the portable drive.

Hopefully your computer place is good and the failure is the interface, some form of read/write disk error, or similar.

Did you keep your CDs?

Think positive I.T. thoughts.
fade6 OP
1 posts
 
Thanks for all the comments folks! Much appreciated. Certainly never intend on tossing the CD's, and still have a CD player for an occasional turn. It was more of a - should I create a server library or not. I think the idea of keeping it small, to just the unique albums/songs that can't be had on my streaming services does make the most sense for me. Again - appreciate the discussion!
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,564 posts
 
edcyn/OT:

Our iMac "completely" failed in 2017 (nothing retrievable per Apple).

We replaced it with another/like iMac (the old one was 7 years old).

Approx. one year ago my wife was able to retrieve all of our lost photos, documents et cetera, when she accidentally discovered that they had been stored in The Cloud (think she was doing something on FaceBook @ the time).

Not a computer person, but glad my wife eventually figured it out (and pissed that Apple didn’t bother to advise/look).

DeKay
flrun's avatar
flrun
92 posts
 
Fade,

Good for you. Definitely the ones you cannot stream or replace, after that who knows once you have those done you might find you enjoy being able to browse and play and decide to rip them all.

Keeping your CDs will be your first backup, then make sure the computer or whatever you put the CDs on is backed up to an external drive. Or two.

Will
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