Hi Again,

Been considering the best way to arcive the Flac Files I'm creating.

The Favourite is for an External HardDrive.

I've been looking around and seen a few on Ebay at around £130.Does this seem resonable for a 120gb HardDrive.

It says they use either Maxtor DiamondMax Or Seagate Barracuda Disks.These are thermally sealed in an Aluminium case.

Any views on the above?

How long will the Hard Drive last?Are we talking years or decades?

When not in use wear and how would be the best storage solution?

I'd be interested in any views on long term storage of Lossless files on an external HardDrive.

Thanks,

Ian

sounds a bit expensive to me.
I archive to an 'external' disk, but use standard internal disks with an IDE - USB2 adapter and power supply (about £30 from Maplin in the UK) - you only need 1.
That way, you just buy more disks as you need them, temporarily attach them to the PC and copy over any files you want backed up.
I try and buy drives around the £0.5/GB price point (current fav are 160GB drives for about £80). It works for me, the drives don't take up as much space as "proper" external drives and the cost is significantly lower.

If you want the drive attached for more than a few hours, then it's probably worth buying an external drive, otherwise this solution should be good enough...

edit: here's the link to the adapter:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/module.as...&moduleno=35057

Audio_Spyder, how long can this adapter be? (wirewise i mean) would be cool to just pack few drives to some old pc box and switch them when needed, but the cable would have to be at least 2 m long i guess.

the usb cable is very short (20-30cm I think). You may be able to add a USB extension cable, but I haven't tried it (although there's no reason why it shouldn't work).
I store the drives in jiffy bags and pull them out when needed. They should be fairly well protected, and as long as you don't move them round too much when they are spun up, things should be reliable.

Is there something similar at similar price for firewire? (No USB 2 here so far)

i use a external usb2 HD in an enclosure to do periodical backups of my FLAC/MP3/MPC collection... definately a fast/(relatively) inexpensive/easy way to backup LARGE amounts of data.

I have just installed a Lacie 500 gb external HD (well, 467,5 to be true) - for I have some 3,500 cd to archive.. would not be enough to store lossless anyway, so I have chosen AAC LC extreme (kinda 200-220 kbps, EAC 0.95. pb3 ripped, Nero 2.6.1.1 encoded) files which are transparent to me, but I know it's far from ideal.
It's quite a task

something like
http://www.verbatim.com.au/products/produc...fm?ID=U2FWIDE11
(price not so similar)

I'm currently considering purchasing this Seagate 160 GB external drive. 8MB buffer, USB2 and Firewire on the same unit, seems to get good reviews. If it has a drawback, it's that I just missed out on a $50 rebate on this item...


NOTE: I have no association with newegg.com, other than being a satisified customer.

http://www.macally.com/spec/usb/storage_de.../phr_100ac.html

http://www.addonics.com/products/external_hdd/default.asp

To name a few...

Might I also suggest going the DIY route and purchasing a relatively inexpensive 1394 enclosure and bare 3.5" drive. I have done this with both a Sayno 4x DVD+RW drive and a Seagate 100GB 3.5" drive and was able to save a decent amount of money over similar pre-assembled offerings. The 1394 enclosures ran me about $30 each (Oxford chipset), and came with a 6-pin cable and power supply.

...at that price, its a very good idea.
Now, if only we could get enclosures in the UK that cheap.

- Audio Spyder

cute device,
is there any (decent) online store that would ship to europe? (iam having really hard time finding one)

Maxtor OneTouch FireWire & USB 300GB (279 GB real size) = 320€
Cascading up to 63 devices with FW.

Actually this is the precise HD I acquired one month ago and I'm pretty satisfied