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Poster: Ryan11 Date: Apr 5, 2005 12:59pm
Forum: etree Subject: Tito Virus

Congrats to the Mods for losing the Tito virus (or was it a worm?).
I'm new at this and have read the FAQs but still can't decide whether I should back up my SHN downloads on CD or just make Wav CD's for listening and deleating the SHN. I don't have enough storage to consider keeping much on HD so need some advice on what to burn. Thanks

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Poster: Brad Leblanc Date: Apr 5, 2005 10:38pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

can't decide whether I should back up my SHN downloads on CD or just make Wav CD's for listening and deleating the SHN Back pre-archive.org and pre-bt.etree.org I used to burn the SHN/FLAC files of everything I found. After a year or 2 of that I had a lot of binders of these types of data CD's. Now, occasionally I go back to extract 1 of those and find that they have trouble - sometimes the protective surface on the top of them flakes off and my drive can't read one of the tracks affected. Sometimes I see nothing visibly wrong with the CD and it still fails integrity-check after copying the files to my hard drive. The lesson I learned after investing a lot of time and effort into that is that CDR's are not a good longterm storage medium. Nowadays I use hard drives - price per GB is continually falling (less than $100 for a 200GB drive now), they take up less room than CD's and it's easy to migrate the files to a new drive every 5 or 6 years before it dies. I bought an external USB2 case that easily allows me to hot-swap the drive inside of it, and I just browse http://www.pricewatch.com for bargain drives when I need a new one to fill up. Most the material I keep on the drives are artists that are not on this website and thus much more difficult to replace - Phish, MMW etc... HTH -Brad
This post was modified by Brad Leblanc on 2005-04-06 05:38:26

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Poster: rainydaybloke Date: Apr 6, 2005 1:04am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

How do you store your CDs, Brad?
I think I've read (somewhere) that plastic sleeves can accelerate the decay process.
There are many myths regarding the lifespan of CDs, none of which can really be proven until 100 years or so has passed.

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Poster: Brad Leblanc Date: Apr 6, 2005 1:32am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

http://www.univenture.com/acatalog/binder_pages.html

See the "8 Disc Full Binder" pages. The plastic does stick to the Mitsui's and helps cause the "flaking" issue - that I can confirm. However, up till now I've been real happy with those binders and pages...

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Poster: Nuggets Date: Apr 7, 2005 12:35am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

CompUSA has like 80 slim jewel cases for like $10 to $15 dollars. This is what I was use. No flaking on the top and believe it or not binders do scratch CD's over time. These jewel cases do take up space but to me it's worth it.

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Poster: jcroot Date: Apr 7, 2005 6:17am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

so brad, I think I'm going to try the hd enclosure route. do you know what how long an hd is supposed to last (mechanically etc.) particularly if it's not constantly spinning but only used for filling and then taken offline? And any good brands or technologies (sata etc.) to recommend?

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Poster: Brad Leblanc Date: Apr 7, 2005 11:47am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

Hard drive life is a tough question. You could get a perfect drive and see it last 6-8 years till it's no longer big enough to be useful and the market now has 5 terabyte drives that are 50 bucks. Or, you could get a bad one that fries after a year.

I have 4 120GB drives that are between 2 and 3 years old now. In the next year I'll probably pick up a couple new ones and move the collection over for my peace of mind.

There are a lot of factors that determine the life of the hard drive though.

In regards to technologies, I just pick whatever's cheapest. :) I've been lucky so far (knock on wood). Higher RPM's mean more heat, and I feel that's probably decreases life. I try to stick with slower 5400 RPM drives - if I can find them (they are slowly going away).

There are a bunch of posts on the Petabox forum about hard drive technologies. I would recommend reading these before you buy a couple.

http://www.archive.org/web/petabox.php

Good luck!

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Poster: jcroot Date: Apr 7, 2005 12:32pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

thanks - checking it out now.

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Poster: jcroot Date: Apr 5, 2005 11:57pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

so have you found that cd-rs as opposed say to cd-rws have any better longevity? I've seen that the theoretical longevity can be around 75 years for some cd-rs but that cd-rws are considerably less. I've been thinking of backing shows with dvds but, aside from the increased storage space, not sure if they have any better longevity.

That's really disappointing to hear about your flaking cd-rs just the same. The hard drive enclosure idea is the best I've heard so far. Thanks for the tip

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Poster: Brad Leblanc Date: Apr 6, 2005 12:22am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Backing Up Your Tunes

http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/storage/cdrlifespan.htm

All of mine are plain-ol' CDR's - no CDRW's. The best performers for me are the Kodak's, but they stopped making CD's a couple years ago (I bought about 6 spindles when I heard that this was happening). Close second goes to Quantegy. Poor performers are everything else. TDK, Sony, Mitsui etc...