As I described above, I am using the Seaport Free Agent Go Pro 500GB external hard drive to store my music files. I also purchased a 2nd Seaport drive for backup purposes. I have about 65 GB of music stored and completed by first backup. Seaport drive #1 is using the Firewire connnection and Seaport drive #2 is using the USB connection. The backup took 23 minutes. The system sounds great. |
don't rely on a raid type of system to be fool proof. you still need to have a separate disk outside of your local/nas setup to be fault tolerant. i have been in the computer industry for over 30 years from mainframes down to pc's. even the companies using the largest and the most expensive raid storage systems back up their data to other disk systems or to tape. if you rip your cd's to the nas/raid system, keep your original cd's as your backup if anything happens. disks do fail and the raid setup allows for a disk drive to fail without corrupting your data (if you use raid 1, 5, 6). with a computer systems, you usually have 1 interface (controller) to the storage system and they sometimes fail sending bad data to the disk subsystem. to help alleviate this, you need 2 controllers to the disks or backup your data to another device outside of your computer. |
Sounds like a nice setup. I've been seriously thinking of making the switch to a music server as well. Thanks for sharing your setup. Please keep us posted with a few more suggestions and comparisons as your system settles in. |
I picked up my Ayre USB DAC last Saturday and hooked it up. Wow! I was very impressed with the way it sounds. It is better sounding then my Ayre CX-7e CD player. The highs are better and so is the bass. The music seems to be clearer and more engaging. The unit still has to burn in and so do my new Synergistic Research TESLA Quad speaker cables. Music Lovers Audio (Berkeley, CA) said everything will sound better after some time.
I have about 25 CD’s loaded into my MAC Book Pro computer and many more to go. It takes between 3 to 5 minutes per CD using the AIFF format. This is a very boring time consuming process.
My MAC Book Pro is connected to the Furman AC-215 power conditioner. The MAC has 4 GB RAM and the 120GB solid state drive. I am using the Seaport Free Agent Go Pro 500GB external hard drive to store my music files. The Furman is required so the MAC does not interfere with the audio components. See http://www.furmansound.com/product.php?div=01&id=AC-215_PRO
I followed Ayre’s MAC Book setup instructions and they worked. The Audio MIDI setup was a little different from their instructions but we finally figured it out. The QB-9 is connected (balanced cables) to my Ayre AX-7e Integrated amp connected to my Sonus Faber Auditor M Speakers. |
Even if the enclosure itself failed, the SATA drives would survive with all the data. Agreed...but you would need to repair the Drobo...I figured my approach be very inefficient but by having a RAID 1 with two mirrored drives then means I have a back up ready to go in minutes no matter what happens (just flip the drive into one of the spare bays on any of my other machines).' Perhaps I am too cautious!! |
Shardone, it's very easy to use. I have already had one SATA drive die on me, and I just popped in another. I had a RAID array that a buddy built for me, actually the head IT guy at my company, and he is the one that turned me on to the Drobo. He explained that the underlying software that runs it is what makes it so reliable. Even if the enclosure itself failed, the SATA drives would survive with all the data. I really like it. I bought the Droboshare and use it as my network hard drive as well. We have literally thousands of hours of video on it now, and music, music, music. |
It's not the cheapest solution, but I have a Drobo for back up and it let's me sleep at night. After having many a back-up external drive fail, I settled on the Drobo, and it blows away the RAID array it replaced as far as ease of use. I looked at this. It does look impressive but I worry that the Drobo itself becomes the weak link in the chain. Currently, I am considering a NAS LaCie 2big with two 1 TB dives that run mirrored on RAID 1. I figure even if the LaCie dies I'll still easily have access to the data either of the two mirrored drives. Is my logic correct ? I am not sure. I was certainly tempted by the Drobo and all the hype it is getting in magazines. |
Hgeifman-
Assuming you're going to use iTunes for playback, you should try the Amarra software. See:
http://www.sonicstudio.com/amarra/index.html |
you can get 4GB of ram for $30-$100 from fry's. all my macs have at least 4GB and it will make your applications run better if you have many apps executing at once. Drobo is a nice unit but a little pricey. Always backup to a separate drive from where all of your apps/itunes library is located. A drobo or any raid device will not help you if you have a controller issue or human error that corrupts your data. |
It's not the cheapest solution, but I have a Drobo for back up and it let's me sleep at night. After having many a back-up external drive fail, I settled on the Drobo, and it blows away the RAID array it replaced as far as ease of use. Oh yeah, and since it has 4 SATA drives that back all of the info up on itself, you can hot swap up to 3 failed drives and never lose any data. Truly a great invention, and easy to use.
Also, near infinite expandablity. As SATA drives get bigger, you can put bigger ones in, hot swap them, and lose no data. |
Hi Sfar: Thanks for your suggestions above. I forgot to mention in my post that I ordered two Seagate FreeAgent Go™ Pro for Mac (500gb) external drives. Drive #1 is the main drive connected to the computer by Firewire. Drive #2 is the backup drive connected by USB cable. If something happens to drive #1, I have a backup in drive #2. I am checking on your iTouch suggestion. |
Congratulations, that should sound great and be easy to use.
A couple of observations, unless you're going to use the MacBook for other RAM-hungry applications at the same time you shouldn't ever need more than 4Gb of RAM.
You should have a second 500 Gb hard drive to serve as a backup for your primary music storage drive. It doesn't need to be as quiet or fast as your primary and an AC-powered 3.5" USB drive of that size would be quite inexpensive.
A great thing to have with a setup like yours is an iTouch to use as a remote control for iTunes.
Good luck |
