Topic: its really a shame that...

[Brian Skalinder]

woah, seriously?    It has digital inputs?!?
< snip >
Edit - I'm not seeing any inputs on the SB3... 

Digital input of sorts.  Not coax or optical S/PDIF, but rather TCP/IP-based digital input via cat5 or wireless network.  Was a mild PITA and not insignificant startup cost getting my PC system up and running:  SATA card + 2 internal drives (RAID1) and firewire card + external enclosure + 2 external drive (nightly backup for redundancy).  Of course, I have all my data backed up on optical media (and most my masters backed up off-site as well).  Redundancy and backups are critical if you're running computer-based playback...unless one fancies re-doing all the setup work if a HD fails.  Right now, I'm running PC Foobar > digi-out > office system and PC > wireless network > Squeezebox digi-out > living room system.  Since making the switch to medialess playback I haven't looked back, not even glanced - well worth the effort getting it all fired up.  For me, anyway.  Love it.

[pfife]

woah, seriously?    It has digital inputs?!?
< snip >
Edit - I'm not seeing any inputs on the SB3... 

Digital input of sorts.  Not coax or optical S/PDIF, but rather TCP/IP-based digital input via cat5 or wireless network.  Was a mild PITA and not insignificant startup cost getting my PC system up and running:  SATA card + 2 internal drives (RAID1) and firewire card + external enclosure + 2 external drive (nightly backup for redundancy).  Of course, I have all my data backed up on optical media (and most my masters backed up off-site as well).  Redundancy and backups are critical if you're running computer-based playback...unless one fancies re-doing all the setup work if a HD fails.  Right now, I'm running PC Foobar > digi-out > office system and PC > wireless network > Squeezebox digi-out > living room system.  Since making the switch to medialess playback I haven't looked back, not even glanced - well worth the effort getting it all fired up.  For me, anyway.  Love it.

Yeah, the backup system is kinda stressing me.  I'm in the infantile stages of getting this all set up, right now - I actually have everything working (network, remote desktop control, slimserver) but I haven't gotten my backup system going.... I'm planning to have it as my main musical collection, so I'm gonna have to do a RAID, but I have no idea how to set one up, but I could prolly figure it out.   At this point I only have about 6gb of flacs on a 40gb hd, but I'm gonna be purchasing some larger HDs within a couple days, I'd imagine.  I've lived through hard drive failure before, and it totally blows.   IT was actually way worse than HD failure, b/c I didn't notice that it was failing for quite a while, so a lot of my early flac masters are corrupted on the optical backups, becuase the source on the HD was corrupted... 

I'm still not really following the use of the ethernet input as a digital input... As it stands right now, I have a cat5 wire running to the location where my SB3, and was planning to use it as the main network input,but I do have wireless... but I don't understand why I'd plug the computer into it as Nick was saying... I'm actually OK with going with the SB3 because I'm pretty sure it will make my CD player obsolete, and has DACs that I'm totally sold on.

thanks for the input guys.

[Brian Skalinder]

I'm planning to have it as my main musical collection, so I'm gonna have to do a RAID, but I have no idea how to set one up, but I could prolly figure it out.

FWIW, I think RAID is overkill.  Consumer RAID devices are not as reliable as pro - controller failures are more likely, and recovery is less dependable.  I'm actually kinda sweating my cheapo SATA RAID card right now.  One of these days I'll turn off the RAID and switch over to an automated nightly sync.  Unless your data is changing a LOT over the course of a day, I think an automated nightly sync between two drives is easier and safer.  That's what I did for my second pair of drives and will continue to do for drives I add to my system.

At this point I only have about 6gb of flacs on a 40gb hd, but I'm gonna be purchasing some larger HDs within a couple days, I'd imagine.  I've lived through hard drive failure before, and it totally blows.   IT was actually way worse than HD failure, b/c I didn't notice that it was failing for quite a while, so a lot of my early flac masters are corrupted on the optical backups, becuase the source on the HD was corrupted... 

I remember the thread about your corruption problems. Sucks!  At any rate, no better time than now, is what I figured.  The more data you acquire, the more effort it will be down the road.  I loaded ~400 GB of data from CD/DVD backups onto my HD system.  PITA.  And it sounds like you have all the core infrastructure ready - network, wireless, etc.

I'm still not really following the use of the ethernet input as a digital input... As it stands right now, I have a cat5 wire running to the location where my SB3, and was planning to use it as the main network input,but I do have wireless... but I don't understand why I'd plug the computer into it as Nick was saying...

If you have cat5 and wireless, you're all set.  I'm not sure why you'd connect your PC directly to the SB3, either.  The only reason to run your PC directly to the SB3 is if you don't have a network set up.  I far prefer using Foobar for my office listening, anyway, so no need for an SB3 in there.  In the living room, I'm not willing to put up with a media PC, so the SB3's a great, compact option.

[pfife]

I'm planning to have it as my main musical collection, so I'm gonna have to do a RAID, but I have no idea how to set one up, but I could prolly figure it out.

FWIW, I think RAID is overkill.  Consumer RAID devices are not as reliable as pro - controller failures are more likely, and recovery is less dependable.  I'm actually kinda sweating my cheapo SATA RAID card right now.  One of these days I'll turn off the RAID and switch over to an automated nightly sync.  Unless your data is changing a LOT over the course of a day, I think an automated nightly sync between two drives is easier and safer.  That's what I did for my second pair of drives and will continue to do for drives I add to my system.

Wow, sweet!  Honestly, and I hate to admit it, but what you are saying here is what I thought what a RAID was.   what's above is exactly what I'd like to do.  Thanks for the link +T.  Seems easy enough- I've made bat files before, just never used the scheduler.  I'd imagine its not that difficult.

thanks for the info.

[Brian Skalinder]

Wow, sweet!  Honestly, and I hate to admit it, but what you are saying here is what I thought what a RAID was.   what's above is exactly what I'd like to do.  Thanks for the link +T.  Seems easy enough- I've made bat files before, just never used the scheduler.  I'd imagine its not that difficult.

Really easy to do.  I could've used xcopy and BAT files and the Windows scheduler, but I've encountered challenges before with scheduling in Win2K.  The Argentum s/w is dirt cheap and has a super-easy interface, so I forked over a few bucks.  Don't use Argentum!  Use DeltaCopy.  More info on reasonable redundancy here.  FWIW, RAID1 (mirroring) is real-time sync between two drives - every bit written to one drive is also written to the other simultaneously.  With the process in the link above, the data's synced based on a schedule you define.  For my purposes, nightly is frequently enough.  But you could set it up to sync every 6 hours if you want, or every hour, or 30min, or whatever interval works for you.  At any rate - a total breeze.

Good luck!

[pfife]

Wow, sweet!  Honestly, and I hate to admit it, but what you are saying here is what I thought what a RAID was.   what's above is exactly what I'd like to do.  Thanks for the link +T.  Seems easy enough- I've made bat files before, just never used the scheduler.  I'd imagine its not that difficult.

Really easy to do.  I could've used xcopy and BAT files and the Windows scheduler, but I've encountered challenges before with scheduling in Win2K.  The Argentum s/w is dirt cheap and has a super-easy interface, so I forked over a few bucks.  FWIW, RAID1 (mirroring) is real-time sync between two drives - every bit written to one drive is also written to the other simultaneously.  With the process in the link above, the data's synced based on a schedule you define.  For my purposes, nightly is frequently enough.  But you could set it up to sync every 6 hours if you want, or every hour, or 30min, or whatever interval works for you.  At any rate - a total breeze.

Good luck!

right on, sounds like a cinch.  The only problematic issue I forsee is getting all the HDs running in the computer, but it shouldn't be a problem.  I think I'm going to have a 20gb one for the operating system, and 2 400gbs or so for the data.   I think I have enough spots open on the ribbons for that - the computer currently has 2 hds in it, and only 1 cdrom drive, so I should have a slave spot open on that ribbon w/the cd rom.   sounds like it could be simple!  Now I just need to get the drives!

[Tim]

good info Skalinder - thanks

[Nick's Picks]

yea...I was backwards.
its got a digital OUTPUT..
so you can stream directly do your DAC, should you have one.

I knew there was some sort of digital chain here I really liked w/this box.

[Brian Skalinder]

The Argentum s/w is dirt cheap and has a super-easy interface, so I forked over a few bucks.

Note:  I cannot recommend Argentum Backup any longer due to a fatal flaw.  See reasonable redundancy thread for details and a new, better solution.