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Topic: Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection (Read 13200 times) previous topic - next topic
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Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #25 –
Quote from: ozmosis82 on
I've been thinking that I should start storing the DVDs with my backed up music in some kind of very durable casing.

Personally, I wait until I see a sale price on 250+ Case Logic or generic CD binders from Staples or Walmart, then I buy two. People often seem to forget to factor in the cost of binders or cases when they price out optical media. Another option is to buy CD/DVD inserts for standard three ring binders which can then be labelled and shelved. The third option is to buy bulk plastic CD cases and inserts. Labelling and finding physical media can be very time consuming. I cannot recommend the use of any type of sticky disk labels.

If asked as to which is best between Blu-Ray, dual-layer, DVDs, originals CDs or RAID, I would say, please, backup your data in as many different ways as physically possible. Redundancy has been my best friend and saving grace many more times than I care to count.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #26 –
So I want to share with you how I store my stuff:

I use a Linux based fileserver. Every harddisk is encrypted using dm-crypt with it's own 2048bit key. The encrypted volumes are then integrated into two LVMs, each containing a volume group one called data and the other data-backup. The VGs contain a logical volume called fileserver and (you guessed it) I backup VG data to VG data-backup.
If I run out of space I buy two new harddisks, whatever is cheap and quiet at that particular moment and integrate them into the LVMs and extend their filesystems.
This has worked several times without any hiccups whatsoever and I feel this is a very secure solution with minimal work involved for a long time.
I run smartd deamon to check my harddrives regularly and get send a mail if any errors are discovered (happend once so far).

I feel this is a better solution than any RAID, as I really don't need the high availability RAID offers, and in plus im also protected from logical errors (think any software destroying your tags or sth.) as I have a backup.
Of course it would be better to use a different machine for backups, preferably in another building, but i think my solution is secure enough while offering a pretty good bang for the buck.
Blubb

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #27 –
Quote from: 2tec on
Quote from: ozmosis82 on
I've been thinking that I should start storing the DVDs with my backed up music in some kind of very durable casing.

Personally, I wait until I see a sale price on 250+ Case Logic or generic CD binders from Staples or Walmart, then I buy two. People often seem to forget to factor in the cost of binders or cases when they price out optical media. Another option is to buy CD/DVD inserts for standard three ring binders which can then be labelled and shelved. The third option is to buy bulk plastic CD cases and inserts. Labelling and finding physical media can be very time consuming. I cannot recommend the use of any type of sticky disk labels.

If asked as to which is best between Blu-Ray, dual-layer, DVDs, originals CDs or RAID, I would say, please, backup your data in as many different ways as physically possible. Redundancy has been my best friend and saving grace many more times than I care to count.



Personally, for 'previous' generations, I just use 100 disc spindles. The 'current' generation is stored in prosleeves, in lightproof boxes (in a closet). The spindles take up only slightly more room than the discs stacked in a pile.

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #28 –
I don't see the problem with DVDs. If stored properly, they will last long enough until another technology shows up. All you need to do is to store them properly and of course not buy the cheapest brands. It's been a long time I don't suffer from any HDD failure, with these modern drives, HDD lubricants can last 100 years no problem, but the mechanics will eventually wear out. I think the common sense is that DVDs keep doing fine.

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #29 –
Why do I never see flash memory suggested as a 'long term' storage medium?  It has no moving parts to wear out, no problems with electrolytic capacitors, a drop to the floor probably won't hurt it, many flash cards (SDHC, etc.) are even advertised as waterproof and useable in extreme temperatures, and most of them claim a ten-year storage period (which might be extended with a data refresh?).  Flash is also very space efficient.  Is price the only negative issue with flash storage?  Flash prices are coming down... fast.  If price WASN'T the issue, or if there wasn't a need for Terabytes of storage, would Flash be a viable solution?

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #30 –
Quote from: meTT on
Why do I never see flash memory suggested as a 'long term' storage medium?  It has no moving parts to wear out, no problems with electrolytic capacitors, a drop to the floor probably won't hurt it, many flash cards (SDHC, etc.) are even advertised as waterproof and useable in extreme temperatures, and most of them claim a ten-year storage period (which might be extended with a data refresh?).  Flash is also very space efficient.  Is price the only negative issue with flash storage?  Flash prices are coming down... fast.  If price WASN'T the issue, or if there wasn't a need for Terabytes of storage, would Flash be a viable solution?

Absolutely. Once SSD disks drops to competing price to harddrives, I will certainly prefer those.

But I think it will take a long time. Manufacturers should first lose interest in the old harddrives because of users discomfort with the heat and power consumption. SSD has many great advantages over HDD's that will keep them more expensive for a long time.

However, I would advice against things like USB keys for achiving. I've seen too many of them die because of improper disconnection in Windows. Not sure what causes it - Maybe bad/cheap chipsets in them or something. Probably the less cheap models have better protection against such things, but I don't know for sure.
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #31 –
I have a secondary HD in my computer that I store all my music on.  I back up once a month to an external 1 TB drive that sits right next to the computer.  I also use my older external drive (320 GB) as a secondary backup, which I leave at work (or somewhere "off-site").  I have True Crypt on it so no one can access anything if it gets stolen.

I've read the thread, and I just don't get why you'd waste time backing up to DVDs at 3-5 GB at a time.  I plug in my HD, copy, paste, and walk away for 90 mins.  And both HDs combined cost me a little over $200.  I don't care if the DVDs were free, the $200 is worth it just to avoid sitting there and burning DVDs for days.

I have been on vacation for a week and brought my HD home from work to back it up again (hadn't done it in a month or two)....and gave it to my GF to keep at her place just to be safe until I return to work.  She thinks I'm such a loser.... she's right....
 

Protecting the Archives of My Music Collection

Reply #32 –
Quote from: hödyr on
I feel this is a better solution than any RAID, as I really don't need the high availability RAID offers, and in plus im also protected from logical errors (think any software destroying your tags or sth.) as I have a backup.

Exactly. People tend to forget RAID is about high availability (which you hardly really need at home), but not about backup.
BTW, as we're speaking about hard disks. The last Disk I bought was a WD-7500 something, green line. Unbelieveable thing. I copied about 300 GB on it, which takes some time. I had the disk outside of the computer. After the 300GB have been copied, I touched the disk and, tadaaa: It wasn't much warmer than my hands! The HDs have some mechanism to not have to move the head too often and rapidly. I've seen many other HDs which will be pretty hot after a long writing job. I was really! surprised.
Storing on DVDs? No, too time consuming.
Another thing which may be of interest (maybe for those ftp'ing in LAN): as you may know, windows ftp.exe sucks and has a very poor command line. Also, it doesn't support passive ftp. For other backup reasons (I automatocally 7z+gpg stuff and upload to a httpd) I was searching for a better command line ftp client, here it is: http://www.ncftp.com/ - ncftpput.exe has a great command line and works just fine as an ftp.exe replacement.