Topic: SETTING UP A COMPUTER TO LISTEN TO OVER THE STEREO

[c.b.taper]

HEY i want to set up a computer with all my hard drives. i have about 15 tb worth of music. i would like to play though my stereo. i have a mia midi card i will use to interface with my preamp. questions i have is can i hook up all my hard drives? is there one one computer better than another to do this with. i mean im not looking for a overpriced computer when i think a inexpensive one will do the trick. i am almost finished moving 1500 dat tapes to harddrives. its been a 7-8 year production. also about 300 cassettes as well. now i want to reap the benefits of my work. any suggestions?

[Gordon]

is it 15 drives?  or are some 2 & 3 tb?  depending how many drives I would just build a budget system with a HUGE case.  you cold do free linux to serve up the music.   or you could look into prebuilt NAS systems.

[dnsacks]

I went the prebuilt NAS route with a synology diskstation.  Running its variant of raid5, I have 8tb of storage from 5x 2tb drives, with the ability to rebuild the array if one of my drives fails (one drive redundancy).  If 3tb drives are used, you'd have 12tb capacity with one drive redundancy. 

The diskstation is basically a standalone computer (running a linux variant?) that plugs into your router and is dedicated to storage and storage management.  Its software and hardware are both really well thought out (drives are properly cooled/vented, etc.) and the included esata interface provides for VERY fast backup speeds using an esata cradle and sata drives.  Further, I get surprisingly fast x-fer speeds between my pc and the diskstation (50-60kB/s, comparable to what I see between the internal sata drives on my pc).  Finally, the diskstation is a very effective file server -- I have it set up to provide folks access to my files via web browser (using the included filestation program) and via email (filestation will create file/directory-specific links that can be emailed too). 

Not cheap (the 5 bay version's around $800 without drives, the 8 bay is around $1k -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108097), but well thought out, developed and supported.

I'd add 3tb wd red series drives . . ..

[c.b.taper]

thanks for that info. i think thats how i would like to do it. now whats NAS? i have about 15 harddrives each one 1 to 3 tb. with this workstation does thr hard drives come with? and u said u hook it up via the router. so does that mean i can access with another pc or my phone? i would also like for people to be able to download my stuff. i have tons of material. how do u set up your files? is it alphabetically or date or both? 

[dnsacks]

NAS = Network Attached Storage -- the synology diskstation I pointed you to comes without drives.  What kind of drives do you have?  The diskstation takes internal sata drives.

The NAS would be accessible to any computer on your network (at home) and can be accessed by any computer on the internet with minimal additional steps

I store my files in etree format (directory and file naming convention is BandAbbreviationYear-Month-Date (etc.) -- or gd1985-07-01-mk4-m118-pcmf1 for directory and gd1985-07-01d01t01.flac for file names).

I sent you a pm with the info you need to access my server and see more 'bout it.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

If you have (15) existing externals, you could buy something like this:  http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/cef0/ and connect them all to your PC now...  Not sure of performance, but at least you'll be able to access them all.

Terry

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

15TB! I hope you have a good backup plan. It would be a shame if all that work transferring data went to waste.

[coloartist]

I just set up a new server with 15tb raided.  10 3Tb drives. I have room for two more drives.

[Chuck]

I have 5 TB of FLACS and I'm using WinAmp Pro to play them.

[spyder9]

I have 2 TB of FLACS, including my own recordings. 

My rig:

QNAP NAS + Logitech Music Server software 7.7.2, coupled with a Google mini PC MK808 (w/ Jelly Bean) + Squeezeplayer & Orange Squeeze apps.  I use a Logitech K400 keyboard to control my music.  I can also surf the 'net with this setup

Tiniest footprint ever.  Plays 24 bit flacs through my Denon receiver.  MK808 connects via hdmi to the Denon and wifi to the NAS.  My TV is now a gigantic tablet.

[Ultfris101]

I have more history as a collector than taper and currently have a FreeNAS 8.3.0 box (AMD multicore cpu and ASUS motherboard, 8gb ram, 6 x 1tb disks). About 3.7tb usable space. I use raidz2 (4 data + 2 parity )so any two drives can fail and I'm still good. If you're comfortable with managing a linux box on your own I recommend FreeNAS but definitely play with it before you put important data on it. Memory is important on this so this is no longer something you can relegate your 5 year old computer to.

I used to have 6 external usb disks and got sick of moving stuff around and backing it up to other disks, etc so I went the FreeNAS route and cracked all the disks open to put them in a single case. I also had a few 2 tb internals in another box I used as temp storage. One thing to keep in mind going this route is that for raid the system only recoginizes as much space as the smallest drive of any others in the pool. So i started with 4 x 500gb, 1x 1tb, and 1x 1.5 tb which the system treated as 6 x 500gb. over time I got each 500 gb drive upgraded to 1tb and magically the whole volume grew to 4 x 1tb space available. Now I need to go to 5 x 2tb disks and get 6 x 1.5tb, then full 6 x 2tb.

Although this device is very redundant disk-wise within itself, I still need a second freenas box to mirror to which I blew the budget on many times over to buy microphones and preamps and recorders and..... if the CPU or memory ever takes a crap it's possible to hose the zfs system, or have the whole thing burn up or something.

A freenas box can share to almost anything in one form or fashion. I have some old Xbox's mod'd to run XBMC which I can use but haven't recently, and XBMC is now well ported to run on standard pc's so it's a good option to connect to an entertainment system.

Not exactly what you were looking for but the freenas is applicable. I like it and think ZFS is f'ing cool but you definitely need to be ready for what it takes to manage. It's a DIY solution for sure. I've heard good things about QNAP on the other hand.

At these volumes of data you're really getting into the realm of Production data center/data warehouse management believe it or not. Same principles apply since you can no longer easily move the data temporarily to another external usb drive to make changes. You need to test upgrades on backup or redundant systems before messing with your Production system. make sure you notice when a drive fails and get a spare installed before you lose another, hope a second or third don't die during volume rebuild, etc

[phanophish]

One other opting if you are not up for the DIY FreeNAS solution (which is a good one BTW)  I use a Drobo.  I like the simplicity of the UI and management, plus the flexibility to grow the system as storage/disk costs go down. 

If performance is not a chief concern the USB attached version is pretty affordable (~$300).  More than fast enough for any type of Audio or Video playback, but initially transferring the data in will be limited by the USB2 connection.....

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=570430&Q=&is=REG&A=details

If you want the better performance the 5N is gigabit network attached and much faster but runs about $600...

http://www.drobo.com/products/professionals/drobo-5n/index.php

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/drobo-hits-the-turbo-boost-with-newly-launched-5n-home-nas/

I've had both a USB attached and the previous Network attached version and have been very happy.  ALWAYS backup up your data if you can't afford to loose it.  RAID is not enough if it is critical data.  I backup from the network attached version > USB version.  So I have a backup of my FLACS, but if my house burns down.  There is just not an affordabel cloud solution out there for the volumes of data we are talking about and even if there was I don't really have the bandwidth to back it all up......

[Humbug]

I was hoping someone could help a real technophobe (don't even own a smartphone)!

At the moment in the lounge I have a flatscreen TV and an old '80s Cyrus II amp connected to a CD/DVD player and Kef Q1 speakers.

In another room I have a wifi router (my wife uses a laptop and her iphone with it) and my ancient pc connected to hard drives where I work on shows, and store my FLAC files.

I'd like a device that I can connect between the TV and amp that can stream music from my pc, and also play youtube videos / surf, that sort of thing. Some kind of a hand held controller would be great too.

I've tried reading up on this, but the stuff on the net is so jargon-heavy I get bogged down!

Help much appreciated.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

A Roku will do that.

You need this to stream from the PC:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/256058/stream_media_from_your_pc_to_your_roku_box.html

When I had one I like it. I had the second version, so I'm sure the newer ones are even nicer.

I was hoping someone could help a real technophobe (don't even own a smartphone)!

At the moment in the lounge I have a flatscreen TV and an old '80s Cyrus II amp connected to a CD/DVD player and Kef Q1 speakers.

In another room I have a wifi router (my wife uses a laptop and her iphone with it) and my ancient pc connected to hard drives where I work on shows, and store my FLAC files.

I'd like a device that I can connect between the TV and amp that can stream music from my pc, and also play youtube videos / surf, that sort of thing. Some kind of a hand held controller would be great too.

I've tried reading up on this, but the stuff on the net is so jargon-heavy I get bogged down!

Help much appreciated.

[phreshie]

Humbug - have you looked at the AppleTV device -
http://www.apple.com/appletv/