Topic: storage cds

[Popmarter]

Most of my cd's (live copies) are in normal 2cd boxes but i want to change that as i just takes up to much space.  i must keep the girl happy 

I decided to go for saving shows on harddisc. I don't trade anymore, just download some occasionally. All my masters (35+) are in FLAC on cd now. Putting all cd's (+/-1300 (so approx. 650 doubles) to harddisc is too much work. I don't feel the need to save all, i am make a selection for the good and maybe give away the rest. After that i might transfer it all to FLAC and connect it to the stereo so i can listen to it very easy.

Now let's say i actually go and do this.

- Do you think this is a good idea?

- Is there a way of testing discs if they are stil error-free, without having to listen to them all? (some have very weird colours already) The good and error-free disc might be worth transferring to HD. Crappy ones can go to dustbin straightaway.

greets,
Popm

[pfife]

My personal experience is that storing/archiving in FLAC was NOT a good idea, but a lot of it was because I was/am a moron (no hate for flac here).   If you made FLAC FFPs when you made the flacs, you could verify them.  Otherwise, I think the only way to tell if they are toast or not is to try to decode them.  If the discs are discoloring, I'd save the content now if its not too late - its only going to get worse!   Keep the discs out of light when you store them!

I know you are talking about going from disc -> HD, but for people who are going HD -> disc, I strongly urge them to use any kind of burning verification w/ the burning software, as well as md5s.   I used to think that doing a verification was a waste of time, but when many of my flacs on disc turned up toasted, I began running verification (per advice from Skalinder).  It took only a matter of seconds to see that neither the CD Burner, or my DVD Burner were burning discs that were passing verification (which was probably 1 source of my problem, in addition to a bad hard-drive).  I now have about 30 DVDs with flacs on them, and I have no idea which ones are decodable or not - and it pretty much blows.  So learn from my experience.

Good luck.

[Popmarter]

My personal experience is that storing/archiving in FLAC was NOT a good idea, but a lot of it was because I was/am a moron (no hate for flac here).   If you made FLAC FFPs when you made the flacs, you could verify them.  Otherwise, I think the only way to tell if they are toast or not is to try to decode them.  If the discs are discoloring, I'd save the content now if its not too late - its only going to get worse!   Keep the discs out of light when you store them!

ummm...i did put some masters to flac without a md5 or so....that makes me a moron too?.
lucky some are in SHN with md5, but that way in my brighter years i guess..

but for just audio-cd's, i have to listen to them to check if they are still ok? there is no other way? (or maybe just throw away every non-sourced shows?)

[pfife]

My personal experience is that storing/archiving in FLAC was NOT a good idea, but a lot of it was because I was/am a moron (no hate for flac here).   If you made FLAC FFPs when you made the flacs, you could verify them.  Otherwise, I think the only way to tell if they are toast or not is to try to decode them.  If the discs are discoloring, I'd save the content now if its not too late - its only going to get worse!   Keep the discs out of light when you store them!

ummm...i did put some masters to flac without a md5 or so....that makes me a moron too?.
lucky some are in SHN with md5, but that way in my brighter years i guess..

In my case, the issue was that the burns weren't completely accurate (unverified/would not have passed verification had I tried it) - Had I verified them with md5summer, I would have known that way back then, and could have avoided having my archived copy being one that was incorrect.   If you have the md5s, you wanna burn those on the disc too, and then verify right after burning the disc to make sure the files are exactly the same.   You can verify them again now, but with flacs you could also just try to decode them.

This won't do much to help with the issue of degradation of the physical disk, but it would be quick to see if such degradation affected the files.

but for just audio-cd's, i have to listen to them to check if they are still ok? there is no other way? (or maybe just throw away every non-sourced shows?)

Maybe someone else has a better idea, but I think you just gotta check em w/ your ear.

[Shawn]

I think hard drive storage is the way to go. CDs and DVDs degrade over time.

don't forget if you go to hard drive you always run the risk of hard drive failure. I had a friend loose 300 gig worth of shows when his hard drive crapped out on him. He had no way to get that stuff back. If you are going to do it back everything up to a second hard drive so if one of them goes down you don't loose all of your stuff.

[J.Maye]

Instead of tossing the shows your not sure about, why not kick tham down to some noob and make his day? As long as said noob understands that not everything will transfer, let them take a shot at it. It might be a good jump-start to someones collection. Some of these shows will have to transfer. If the discs were completely toasted you wouldnt be wondering what to do with them. 

[pfife]

can they recover corrupted drives, or only ones where something physical is broken?

[Popmarter]

I think hard drive storage is the way to go. CDs and DVDs degrade over time.

don't forget if you go to hard drive you always run the risk of hard drive failure. I had a friend loose 300 gig worth of shows when his hard drive crapped out on him. He had no way to get that stuff back. If you are going to do it back everything up to a second hard drive so if one of them goes down you don't loose all of your stuff.

That highlighted part is only true if he doesn't want to spend money to recover the toasted/failed HD.

Being somewhat local and familiar with them, Ontrack Data Recovery in the Twin Cities (and the world) http://www.ontrack.com/services has the ability to recover some if not all data from drives that have suffered fire, flood and other physical damage... all it takes is cash.  I have no idea what they charge but apparently to ask is a freebie. 

You'd have to be able to put a price tag on your music that was stored on a crashed HD and be the judge from that point on.   Not sure if this has ever been kicked around here, and I didn't bother to search first, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Well, in my case there real value stuff, is what i recorded myself. The masters are on MD, so i have that as a backup too. most other stuff is obtained in trades years ago. most shows are for download now once in a while. ofcourse i don't want to loose 300gb of music, but getting a second 300gb HD as backup...mmm..not sure.. Maybe a smaller one, just for masters
thanks for the replies btw.