Author Topic: Media Storage/ server ideas? (Read 8833 times)

Chuck · « **on:** July 11, 2011, 12:27:08 PM »

I'm starting to look into putting all my music on one storage system. Can someone point me to the best options for doing that?
I have racks and racks of CD's and I'd like to back them all up and access the songs & albums on a network in my home.

One thing I am really worried about is what happens if that storage drive gets corrupt? I'd have to re-rip all the CD's again.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Jimna · « **Reply #1 on:** July 11, 2011, 12:31:45 PM »

I built a HTPC (home theater PC) that is also a server jammed full of drives.

Backup is the only guaranty against a drive corruption. HDD space is cheap enough these days....

OFOTD · « **Reply #2 on:** July 11, 2011, 12:38:32 PM »

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=140784.0

Several different solutions/ideas have been discussed recently.

rastasean · « **Reply #3 on:** July 11, 2011, 04:55:42 PM »

Yeah, the thread OFOTD linked to is a great place to start looking.

Like everything else with this hobby, it is dependent on how much money you want to spend. All the operating systems that I am interested in are completely free but the hardware will cost a little money unless you already have a machine you want to dedicate as the media server.

Backups are also good in case accidentally delete files or overwrite them.

Chuck · « **Reply #4 on:** July 11, 2011, 07:12:28 PM »

Thanks for the links guys. Lots of great info.

Is there a software program that tracks and displays the albums and songs you have? I wonder if there is a program or system that can keep the album art etc... too.

dnsacks · « **Reply #5 on:** July 11, 2011, 07:31:59 PM »

j river media center should do all that you want quite well (imho) (www.jriver.com)

I'm currently using a raid5 array to store my music (4 x 2tb hard drives hold a total of 6tb of music -- if any one of the drives fails, the built in redundancy will allow the array to rebuild the lost data from the other 3 drives). I periodically back this up onto other drives as well (which I keep offline) so that a power spike/etc. won't send me back to square one. The raid5 array is attached to my main (always on) media center server and is available to my network.

audBall · « **Reply #6 on:** July 11, 2011, 11:01:55 PM »

Quote from: Chuck on July 11, 2011, 07:12:28 PM

Is there a software program that tracks and displays the albums and songs you have? I wonder if there is a program or system that can keep the album art etc... too.

Foobar works pretty well for all of this.

edit - woops, read that too quickly last night. Foobar won't store your art.

OFOTD · « **Reply #7 on:** July 11, 2011, 11:32:21 PM »

Quote from: Chuck on July 11, 2011, 07:12:28 PM

Is there a software program that tracks and displays the albums and songs you have? I wonder if there is a program or system that can keep the album art etc... too.

XBMC - xbmc.org

A version for whatever OS platform you prefer.

sparkey · « **Reply #8 on:** July 12, 2011, 01:19:40 PM »

Quote from: OFOTD on July 11, 2011, 11:32:21 PM

Quote from: Chuck on July 11, 2011, 07:12:28 PM
Is there a software program that tracks and displays the albums and songs you have? I wonder if there is a program or system that can keep the album art etc... too.

XBMC - xbmc.org

A version for whatever OS platform you prefer.

I use an excel spreadsheet. Tape Tracker used to be free, but I can't find a link to download it....

OFOTD · « **Reply #9 on:** July 12, 2011, 01:26:43 PM »

XMBC is free as well. Not only multiple OS support (Win, mac, 'nix) but they also offer Live CD versions as well as mobile versions (j/b iOS).

The built-in scrapers can add not only album info and covers but lyrics and other configurable options if so needed. Nice to have one program scan your directories, automatically add info, sort and they allow you to playblack all from one program/interface and for free.

Chuck · « **Reply #10 on:** July 18, 2011, 11:17:01 AM »

Quote from: OFOTD on July 11, 2011, 11:32:21 PM

Quote from: Chuck on July 11, 2011, 07:12:28 PM
Is there a software program that tracks and displays the albums and songs you have? I wonder if there is a program or system that can keep the album art etc... too.

XBMC - xbmc.org

A version for whatever OS platform you prefer.

I got a chance to try XBMC over the weekend.
I think it's going to be great for what I want to do. Thanks for the link.
I opened some random CD's I had with it and it recognized the individual songs every time. It even recognized the limited run KBCO studio CD's that I have.

So, how have you all gotten the songs ripped from CD's and tagged for your media servers?
Is Exact Audio copy overkill for doing that?

Any advice or suggestions on how to efficiently copy all of my music would be appreciated, as I am going to start building the server soon.

Lil Kim Jong-Il · « **Reply #11 on:** July 18, 2011, 11:26:08 AM »

Quote from: Chuck on July 18, 2011, 11:17:01 AM

So, how have you all gotten the songs ripped from CD's and tagged for your media servers?
Is Exact Audio copy overkill for doing that?

Any advice or suggestions on how to efficiently copy all of my music would be appreciated, as I am going to start building the server soon.

I used XBMC to rip commercial discs and DVDs to my server drive. It worked great and just took care of everything including artwork. EAC seemed like overkill and I'm getting basically lazy so didn't want the extra step for something that large that I'm not going to back up. I consider the commercial CDs and DVDs in the closet are my backups of that material.

I didn't start tagging my flacs until recently so metadata for my personal recordings had to be entered manually. Amateur video I entered manually too.

Brian Skalinder · « **Reply #12 on:** July 18, 2011, 11:38:03 AM »

Quote from: Chuck on July 18, 2011, 11:17:01 AM

So, how have you all gotten the songs ripped from CD's and tagged for your media servers?
Is Exact Audio copy overkill for doing that?

I used EAC and its FreeDB feature to tag all my commercial CDs as I ripped them. Worked great. Ran into an occasional hiccup with poorly defined tags in FreeDB, or misidentified discs...but not very many. I can't remember if I still had EAC properly configured for offsets when I did my ripping, but I definitely remember turning off secure ripping -- i.e. used the fastest ripping option (the one that doesn't compare ripped WAV v. CD WAV) which made ripping MUCH faster. I only turned on the secure ripping option if I encountered a disc with problems.

Chuck · « **Reply #13 on:** July 18, 2011, 02:02:05 PM »

Good information. Thanks a lot guys.

I'm thinking about getting an external USB Hard drive. I'll probably start with 2T, since I have a gift certificate from Best Buy that's burning a hole in my wallet.
That'll easily hold my commercial CD collection and give me some room to start loading my live stereo recordings too.

I assume you guys rip to 44.1kHz, 16 bit WAVs or FLACs? Does XMBC do no gap playback of WAVs and FLACs?

Lil Kim Jong-Il · « **Reply #14 on:** July 18, 2011, 06:17:06 PM »

IIRC, flac is the default storage format used by XBMC but you can check the settings to ensure that lossless is the preferred format.

I recall gapless playback on my system.

Chuck · « **Reply #15 on:** July 19, 2011, 12:22:38 PM »

I've been reading about the AppleTV 2 that can be jailbroke and XBMC can be loaded on it.
That looks like a really cool option. I haven't read about the downsides yet though.

OFOTD · « **Reply #16 on:** July 19, 2011, 05:19:30 PM »

Quote from: Chuck on July 19, 2011, 12:22:38 PM

I've been reading about the AppleTV 2 that can be jailbroke and XBMC can be loaded on it.
That looks like a really cool option. I haven't read about the downsides yet though.

I have an ATV2 that is jail broken. The only major drawback is that the ATV2 only supports 720p video. No 1080.

If you do use an ATV2 make sure you check uncheck the 'check for updates' box in the Nitro menu. Nitro is to a jail broken ATV2 what Cydia is to the iPad or iPhone. If you don't change the setting eventually you'll get nag screens from Apple to update the iOS. Major pain in the ass if it updates itself as you'll lose your library and will have to redo it which just sucks.

Also the remote options for an ATV2 aren't great and while the Apple remote is neat it does kinda suck to use.

plains203 · « **Reply #17 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:15:15 AM »

Which is why I put mine back to default firmware. The iPhone / iPad couldn't be used as Ardmore for everything within xbmc so I didn't bother. My apple tv is out of sight and therefor the original remote never gets used.

Chuck · « **Reply #18 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:32:59 AM »

Hmmm... I've been told that the ATV 2 does gapless playback of MP3 files which is very important to me. The Roku doesn't.
I did get the MyMedia channel working on my Roku last night. It's pretty cool that I can call up music and video from my main computer over the network now.

OFOTD · « **Reply #19 on:** July 20, 2011, 11:24:33 AM »

Quote from: plains203 on July 20, 2011, 09:15:15 AM

Which is why I put mine back to default firmware. The iPhone / iPad couldn't be used as Ardmore for everything within xbmc so I didn't bother. My apple tv is out of sight and therefor the original remote never gets used.

Spend the $3-4 bucks and buy hippo remote app. Best remote control software I've found for iOS. Controls everything that is wifi accessible. Best app I own for my iPhone/iPad

Chuck · « **Reply #20 on:** July 20, 2011, 12:24:31 PM »

I don't own any Apple products. So, I assume I can't use the Hippo remote application.

Chuck · « **Reply #21 on:** August 01, 2011, 09:45:04 AM »

What CD artwork sites do you guys use to pull CD covers from?

Over the weekend, I got my AppleTV 2 up and running with XBMC. This thing is great!
Now I'm starting to rip my CD's, but I'd like to find a good site with high quality artwork for my CD's.

Right now, I'm finding them mostly on Amazon and freedB. I rename the images "folder.jpg" and place them into the folders with the WAV's. So, when XBMC plays the WAV's the artwork is shown on the screen.

DigiGal · « **Reply #22 on:** August 01, 2011, 09:54:15 AM »

Quote from: Chuck on August 01, 2011, 09:45:04 AM

What CD artwork sites do you guys use to pull CD covers from?

Over the weekend, I got my AppleTV 2 up and running with XBMC. This thing is great!
Now I'm starting to rip my CD's, but I'd like to find a good site with high quality artwork for my CD's.

Right now, I'm finding them mostly on Amazon and freedB. I rename the images "folder.jpg" and place them into the folders with the WAV's. So, when XBMC plays the WAV's the artwork is shown on the screen.

I mostly use Amazon for mainstream stuff. Some of the obscure and OOP discs can be tricky; I've gotten some artwork from eBay listings and some from http://albumart.org/ But a few discs I've had to resort to taking my own photos of the artwork.

OFOTD · « **Reply #23 on:** August 01, 2011, 10:52:20 AM »

Quote from: DigiGal on August 01, 2011, 09:54:15 AM

Some of the obscure and OOP discs can be tricky;

For obsure, OOP and hard to find album info I use http://www.discogs.com/ quite a bit. Especially handy if you have albums from other countries or multiple copies of the same album but from different pressings.

Otherwise for mainstream covers I use a combo of Amazon and Wikipedia. For the most part though the built-in scraper in XBMC usually finds the right cover. I think that the default is freedb. You can download and use several other album art scrapers within XBMC though. Go to add-ins and there should be a category for them.

Chuck · « **Reply #24 on:** August 13, 2011, 12:11:01 PM »

I'm running XBMC on my AppleTV2.
One thing I can't figure out though is how to disable thumbnail caching. I want XBMC to always look for album covers in the root of the directory the WAV files are in. It would also be good to know where XBMC stores those thumbnails. That way, I can go in and clear that folder occasionally, so I don't use all the space on the AppleTV2.

The instructions I have found online:

Thumbnail Cache
XBMC will cache all Thumbnails to UserData\Thumbnails\ using the CRC of the path of the file or folder as a filename. That is the first location XBMC will generally look for a thumbnail for a given item.

But, I can't find that folder. FWIW, I'm using Cyberduck to access the XBMC files on the AppleTV2.

Chuck · « **Reply #25 on:** August 30, 2011, 12:28:29 PM »

I'm having trouble with playing audio files (WAV or FLAC) through XBMC on my Apple TV 2.
The audio stutters when I start to play a file and when I go into the folder with all my audio files and folders. It clears up once I back out to the main XBMC menu.

I've mentioned the issue over on the XBMC forum, but they tell me it's a known bug and they are working on it.

Do any of you have this problem when playing audio files? I'm running the nightly build (August 29, 2011) right now.