pc vs mac, eac vs itunes

Kijanki,

My statement was that you might need RAID if you have a lot of media files (ie, multi-terabytes). With some of the computer-based movies, this is somewhat of a reality. For music-only, it's less likely that you would exceed the 1-2TB / drive capacities seen now.

Either way, I agree with the offsite backup (I keep mine in the safe deposit box). And while Firewire 400 will work fine, you'll appreciate the faster interface when it comes to making the backup (which can take hours to days depending on several factors).

Michael

The Mac vs PC thing is a classic debate and, as with most topics in audio, there isn't a single answer. I rip CD's using either my Mac or PC and then transfer the data to a Linux-based music server. So in a way I use both or neither, depending on how you look at it.

What else do you plan on doing with the computer besides having it as a music server? That will help to answer your question, because there are things that Mac's are very good at (video editing, for example), and there are things for which there is only software available on the PC. (Although you can actually run Windows within a virtual machine on a Mac using software such as Parallels.) It all depends on your personal preferences, willingness to learn at new system, compatibility with things at work and home, etc.

Michael

Hmm... If you're planning on having it as a dedicated system, you could either go with a Mac Mini ($600) or an iMac (which I feel is the best bang-for-the-buck in the Mac lineup, and extremely versatile), or you could get a relatively low-powered PC. Either way, I recommend two external hard drives of at least 1TB: One for music file storage, the other to serve as a backup. Depending on how much music you have, you may need two external RAID boxes for ganging multiple drives together; you can choose RAID level 0 or 5 depending on whether or not you want redundancy. None of the Mac's currently have eSATA interfaces, which would theoretically yield a higher data transfer rate to the drives, but Firewire 800 or USB 2.0 should be more than sufficient for most uses.

Music servers don't generally require a lot of CPU power, so you can get a relatively inexpensive computer from a CPU, RAM, and graphics standpoint and put the money in your drives and backup system. The other way of looking at this is that you don't have to dedicate an entire machine to this purpose, and can use it as a general-purpose computer with the music server function in the background. Whichever system you go (Mac or PC), it will likely work just fine for you.

Michael

Kijanki,

RAID and JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) is somewhat different. First, RAID (except RAID 0, which just mirrors drives) puts different pieces of the data on different drives. JBOD usually functions as multiple drives melded into one. So with RAID data could likely be spread across multiple drives, less typical with JBOD. When reading, this means that each drive can access different parts of that data and the controller pieces it all together, and could theoretically be faster. (There is a penalty, however, when writing.)

Your assertion that reliability is affected by RAID because "one drive fails, you lose both" is incorrect. First, if you only have 2 drives, you use RAID 1, which basically means that each drive is a mirror image of the other, so losing one means you still have an identical functioning copy. With 3+ drives you can use RAID 5, which spreads that data across all drives and also scatters redundant data such that effectively the total of one drive is used to store the redundant information. Now if you lose one drive it is completely reconstructable using the redundant information scattered across the remaining drives.

RAID's purpose (except for RAID level 0, which offers no redundancy) is to preserve data in the event of a drive failure. I repeatedly warn people, though, that it does not protect against other common causes of lost data, such as accidental deletion of files, user screwups, viruses, etc. That's what backups are for!

Michael

Kijanki,

I think we're basically making the same argument: RAID (0, 1, 5) is OK, but backups are imperative.

Musicnoise, how large exactly is your music collection and how fast do you anticipate it growing? If it's slightly over 1TB, then the least expensive option would be to get 2 1.5 or 2TB external hard drives, one for production use and the other for periodic backups. If it's in excess of 2TB or threatening to go there, then you should probably look at external enclosure that gang together at least two drives and run them in RAID 0 (no redundancy but maximal use of storage space). You will need two of these gangs of drives, because that's how you'll make your backups.

As an example of something you might consider, Try this from OWC.

Can you use two completely separate external HDD's to store your data on? Yes. Most software (including iTunes) should handle this just fine. And you can even create some trickery using symbolic links if you're on a macintosh to make those external drives appear as though they're available elsewhere on the filesystem. (Go to the command prompt and type 'ln -s source_directory target_directory' but this is an advanced exercise that I don't think you'll need to do.) But there are enough relatively inexpensive external enclosures that accommodate 2 drives and automatically provide RAID 0 that I'm not convinced there's a real benefit to having two separate external drives (and then another two for the backups) when you can simply have them in the same box.

Michael