So ever since I started re-encoding my music using LAME and EAC using the --ape setting, I realized that I don't want to do this again for a long time.

How do I keep backups of my current 30GB of music, that will grow to near 100GB by the time I'm done? Simply purchase an additional 120GB drive and keep an offline spare copy of my music drive?

What do you guys do to backup your MP3, APE, OGG or whatever files?

Thanks in advance.

I currently just use continous CDR backups once I have enough files to fill a 700MB CDR. This is the simplest and often the cheapest method to use, as drives are pretty quick and reliable nowadays. Also look thru this board for tips on which CDRs to use, very interesting topics on this subject.


Cheers
AgentMil

I can do a lot of CDRs to backup, but how do you get around it not liking my long (artist - album - track # - title.mp3) filenames?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I never really got into burning CDs and I get a 31 character limit using Nero.

So I zip 'em all up into a zip file then copy the .zip file to CDR... time consuming.

Never thought of that way of getting around the character limit. *smacks head against wall after having backed up to 137 cdr's and having to rename alot of files*

Well so far I haven't encoutered that problem. You can disable that 31 character limit but I think you need to use a very fairly recent OS to be able to read the filenames properley. Anyone else with experience in this field?

Cheers
AgentMil

I have the same problem with 90 Gb music.

I am using a second computer with rsync. It is some 5+ years old and can't find the large IDE disks. But linux don't care about bios and can easily find the disks.

So I simply turn on the pc on once a week and run a simple rsync script to backup up changes. Then turn it off.

The another problem is to know what are the recently added files... I mean when you download (fairly legal, of course ) 200MB each day and mix them with main collection, what is the way to burn only those mp3s from last 3-4 days without remembering their names... I used once *NeW* tag in comments field, but it's too ugly way. What do you guys think?

Look at the file date - last written.
Most archivers can make a incremental backup based on this date.
But what if you find a spelling error or a track you never want to hear again? You can delete from a CD-R.

rsync will fix these problems. It simply insures that the backup is identical with the originals...

or just select view>by date (or modified in XP)

Don't use it, it's a complete obsolete option that should be hidden, it could even turn off Lunix compatibility ! Stay with pure 8+3 filenames and total ISO9660 compliance. Your CD will be burned in ISO+Joliet and get 64 characters filenames anyway. Don't mess with ISO level 2.

64 characters isn't always enough when you're doing (artist - album - track# - title.mp3).

You could try using Romeo (128 char limit) instead of Joliet, but some people consider it unsafe.

And, IIRC, Nero doesn't supports Romeo.

I thought the correct spelling was Rumeo and Joliet?

My NTI CD-Maker says Romeo.

From the help file:

While on the topic.

I burnt some of my albums to bring to work and already had some playlists which I copied over too (relative paths) not really thinking about the name limits. Anyway, I made the CD, names were truncated by Nero, half the playlists don't work. So, does anyone know of a simple program that can take a M3U and truncate filenames at 64characters (or whatever the limit is) to take into account automatic truncation by Nero. Is there a way to make playlists in Nero and I am just blind and missing?

(If not I suppose I should dig out the C++ book).

As I stated earlier, just zip up all your files then write to CD... all is preserved.

The problem with Romeo are that the filenames can't have small characters... Only capital letters are accepted... I suggest you use some type of imaging system to create a faked drive with NTFS or similar, on a diskimage and then burn the diskimage onto a CD...

[b]Edit: Joliet? Damn... It was supposed to be Romeo...

Yeah, but you can't play directly from CD then. (Unless you use some horrendous hack plugin that plays from archives)

Regards;

Roberto.

Well, I've recently decided that I will be using a lossless codec for CD's I don't have quick access too, then Ogg Vorbis -q 6 for CD's which I do. I might just go all Vorbis -q 6 and then burn never used backup copies. The first thing I do with new CD's is burn a backup copy.


As for backing up the compressed music, your best bet is HD's. If you have a seperate box, just fill it with big, slow HD's (like Maxtor's 160GB's, or lots of 80 giggers). Then, just turn the seperate computer on when you need to backup. Using rsync like Annuka said, easiest way to backup the files. With a seperate computer, you don't need to worry about the disks failing (because 95% of the time the computer will be off) or other problems.

Though, CDR's might be cheaper than big HD's, but they would be more difficult to backup (hard to double check which files have, and which haven't, been burnt).

For the lack of filename space, just properly tag your data. Newer file formats arn't limited like ID3v1 in terms of the number of characters. Granted, you won't be able to find the exact file as quickly, but if it is a backup copy, you shouldn't really be touching the media enough to need to find a single, or small group, of files.

What I do to get around the filename limit is... I dont.

I just make sure that all my MP3s have correct ID3 tags... that way whenever i have to pull them back from the CD... I just run them thru TAG (and the wonderful frontend) to restore the filenames to their beauty

I do all my CDA backups in Lossless format(ape) to CDR's.
Using EAC+Monkey DLL, I rip to ape on-the-fly.
EAC is able to TAG the ape files too!

*Naming scheme:(One album per folder)
folder's name: ARTIST - ALBUM TITLE
Track's name: TRACK NUMBER - TRACK TITLE
*To easy locate any disk, the volumes are numered in sequence ex: CD001, CD002...
*Two good freeware proggies to keep track of your collection:
MAC - Mp3 Audio Collection - for audio only
Catfish - For Audio and Data

LIF

After a lot of research, the only burning program I was able to find that I could actually have success with burning really really long filenames with was:

Click N Burn Pro 2.0

You can burn filenames up to 255 characters in length.

http://www.stompinc.com/clicknburn/cnbp2.phtml?stp

Works great, I use it to burn my CDRs. I tried burning long file names with many other burning packages but couldn't get it to work properly. The one in this program couldn't be simpler, you go into the file properties menu and it's right there.

chris

I've been thinking about this too, since I face the same problem (except in my case I have 30 gigs of MP3s and Oggs exposed remotely on a dedicated Linux box via NFS and Samba).

Instead of having to burn 50+ CDRs, I'm using an external 100 gig Firewire drive. I use a daily rsync script to keep it in sync with the server.

The disadvantage is the cost of the drive.

Advantages are: time saved (I have far better things to do that sit around waiting for 30 gigs of music to be burned) and portability. Sharing my collection with friends has never been so easy.