I want to convert some of my CD collection to an external hard drive using EAC. I am also considering using FLAC to help with reducing storage space. Can anyone give me some advice?

My setup: primary hard drive has at least 10 GB of free space, external is a new 250GB drive. I want my archives to be high quality and I have several hundred CD's.

1. Do I need to use something like FLAC to store several hundred CD's on a 250 GB drive or will it handle them ripped with EAC by itself?

2. Should I rip and convert on my primary drive and then send to the external drive?

Thanks

1: It's only logical to use FLAC here.

2: Yes.

With such a big project, make sure to read up on everything before you start it. You don't want to find a flaw in your setup halfway through. To reduce the (inevitable) stress on your CD/DVD drive, you should use Burst mode in EAC, together with AccurateRip, and not simply Secure mode. And maybe even buy a dedicated ripping drive.

Been there, no fun. Take care with your set up.



Your CD-ROM drive will survive Secure mode. I've done hundreds of secure rips on mine with no problems.
It is more important to get a the best rip possible so you don find yourself doing this again. Burst mode negates all the advantages of EAC and should only be used with badly damaged tracks.

I guess you don't know about AccurateRip which i mentioned. It compares the checksums of your rip with those checksums other people got for the same rip in an online database. If the "confidence" of matching checksums is sufficient, you can be absolutely sure that your rip is perfect, even in burst mode. I found that i get perfect rips almost all the time with burst mode, so there's really no need to use Secure mode if you use AccurateRip, unless you come across a problematic CD.

Keep in mind AccurateRip doesn't work if you rip to image+cuesheet. In that case, Secure Mode would be the better choice, although if you notice your drive's starting to act funky, switch to Burst Mode using Test & Copy.

As you didn't start your job yet, I suggest you to consider additional features, like:
• corrected drive offset
• single image+cue ripping

Offset correction is often used by people looking for perfect rip. It's also needed if you want to use accuraterip.

Ripping a disk as single image is also used by several people. The cuesheet contain some more or less important data (pregap, additional index, preemphasis flag...). I'm not fond of this ripping mode but I always create and save cuesheets with EAC since I discovered that it sometimes gives some precious information (index, preemphasis).

Accurate rip is fine if your CD's are perfect and the cd's are in the database. If your cd's is not perfect, you have to do it over. If it's not in the database, you have no idea.

If on the other hand you use secure mode in conjunction with Accurate Rip, you are covered either way.