Now That You've Ripped Your Entire Collection...

Rok2id is referring to the famous but somewhat inaccurate attribution to Mark Twain of the statement that "reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." In other words the CD medium, like the LP, is not yet dead.

Regards,
-- Al

Larry, just buy an external hard drive having an interface that can connect to one of your home computers, such as USB, Firewire, or eSATA. Connect it to one of those computers, that can access the NAS, and use the computer to copy the files from the NAS to it. Then simply store the drive at another location, such as your office, and bring it home from time to time to copy newly ripped files onto it.

One caution in selecting the drive is that older operating systems, such as Windows XP, will have problems working with drives that are larger than 2 TB (or more precisely, larger than 2.19 TB). Before you finish ripping your 4000 CDs you'll probably find yourself exceeding that size. If you are using XP, or a Mac OS that pre-dates Tiger (which was released in 2005), you would want to get multiple external drives that are each 2 TB or less, rather than anything larger.

NewEgg.com is a great place from which to buy these and other kinds of computer accessories and parts. Here is a link to their listings of 300+ external hard drives, which you can narrow down to suit your requirements using the guided search feature at the left of the screen. Be sure to note the "More Options" link in that feature.

Best regards,
-- Al

Regarding my earlier point about drives that are larger than 2.19 TB, I should emphasize that the caution about using them with older operating systems only applies to drives that are directly connected to the computer, such as via USB, Firewire, or eSATA. I'm pretty certain that caution does not apply to networked (NAS) storage, assuming that the design of the NAS enclosure supports larger drives.

Regarding cloning programs for Windows, IMO it is generally simpler and better to just copy the files, rather than creating a drive clone. Under some circumstances allowing Windows to "see" both a drive and an identical clone of that drive can result in problems, caused by inconsistencies in the drive letters that Windows assigns.

Regards,
-- Al

Coressence, it appears that unlike the RAID array Tbg uses your Music Vault server does not utilize drives that are mounted in readily removable trays. So I don't think that his approach is applicable to your situation.

If that is correct, I would simply select a 2TB USB external hard drive from among those listed by NewEgg.com at the link I provided earlier, taking into account the user comments that are provided there. Although keep in mind that those comments inevitably reflect a disproportionately high percentage of negative experiences, and comments that were not posted fairly recently may not be representative of currently manufactured product.

Also, I note that some and possibly all of the Music Vault models can accommodate direct connection of a USB external drive, which may prove to be more convenient than the usual approach of copying via a computer.

Regards,
-- Al

Rhanson, I have no Mac experience, but I would think that it should be possible to set things up such that the wifi device (an iPad, perhaps?) and the Mac Mini can communicate with each other without the cable service and the internet (or the cable modem, for that matter) being involved. Either through a router, if your setup includes one and both devices can access it, or directly between the two devices via a wireless "ad hoc network."

Just a thought.

Regards,
-- Al