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[WeatherB]

Hello,

I'm wondering if/how I can move a copy of the entire JRiver Media center plus music library into an external hard drive (or two) for backup. How would I go about this-and ideas? Would I be able to save everything on something like Carbonite without loss of music resolution?


Thanks in advance!

[Samson]

Does this http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77931.msg549616#msg549616 or this http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77824.msg528436#msg528436 help?

I keep my full MC library on an external drive, even the thumbnail cache (thumbs are not the same as "cover art").

[astromo]

Hello,

I'm wondering if/how I can move a copy of the entire JRiver Media center plus music library into an external hard drive (or two) for backup. How would I go about this-and ideas? Would I be able to save everything on something like Carbonite without loss of music resolution?


Thanks in advance!

Looks like Samson has got the external HDD angle covered. On other matters, I'm assuming that this is what you mean by Carbonite:
www.carbonite.com
this appears to be yet another cloud storage service and a check using the forum's search engine could have led you here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77162.0

Personally, I've watched too many episodes of the IT Crowd:




So, for the cost of home storage, I go the in-house route.

[6233638]

After a recent scare, I am now quite paranoid about this - so I picked up two 2TB WD Passports (I don't like drives that require external power supplies) and I use Acronis True Image Home to automate my backups to them. Currently I am only backing up my music folder, but I should really be adding my library to that. (and I wonder about keeping a portable install of Media Center on there too)

Drive 1: Non-stop backup of my music folder. This checks the music folder for changes every five minutes, and copies those changes to the drive.
Drive 2: Daily backup of my music folder. This creates incremental backups on a daily basis, and once a week it creates a new full backup. I have this set up so I have two full backups on the drive at any one time, plus a week of incremental changes. This is good protection against accidental deletion/corruption. I have Acronis set to verify backups as they are created. (this is not enabled by default)


I also have an older 1TB drive which I do a full backup to once a month or so. I may replace this with a 2TB passport so that I can have more than one backup stored on it at a time.
I am thinking of adding another 2TB passport, and changing from doing a full backup once a month or so, to doing this on a weekly basis and rotating the drives so that one drive is week 1 & 3, the other is week 2 & 4.

I currently store the 1TB drive off-site, which should protect against any disasters.
I do sometimes wonder about online backup too, but I'm not sure that I am comfortable sending a company a copy of my data (even if it's just music) and the costs seem rather high.

[WeatherB]

6233638,

Your situation and ideas are very similar to mine:

One 2TB external drive for music on demand (non-stop backup)
Another 2TB drive in a fireproof box for on-site (my house) as backup
A third one for off-site storage (something like a bank safety deposit box).

A loose interpretation of the idea of Triple Modular Redundancy.

I know Carbonite will backup .wav files, but you have must make sure there is no loss of resolution in your plan and, of course, pay more for it as well. I have been experimenting with SeaGate, but their 2TB drive requires AC power. I'd like to find one that only needs the computer as power.

[Samson]

(I don't like drives that require external power supplies)

with SeaGate, but their 2TB drive requires AC power. I'd like to find one that only needs the computer as power.

Is thats because in event of power failure the usb poewered drive will still run (of laptop battery) ?

I do sometimes wonder about online backup too, but I'm not sure that I am comfortable sending a company a copy of my data (even if it's just music) and the costs seem rather high.

I guess you could use something like Truecrypt. I have been very happy with it but I dont encrypt media files. Also, what about locked archive/zip files ?

[6233638]

I have been experimenting with SeaGate, but their 2TB drive requires AC power. I'd like to find one that only needs the computer as power.

The Western Digital Passport drives are 2TB and are bus-powered. Performance is almost on-par with the older 2TB internal SATA drives in my system over USB3. (WD green drives)

I also like that they are available in different colors, which helps with identification. Blue & Red for the alternating backup drives, black & silver for non-stop backup and daily backup drives.
They do use a plastic construction though, which was disappointing.

Is thats because in event of power failure the usb poewered drive will still run (of laptop battery) ?

Because it means you don't have to use a bulky power adapter for them, and you can easily have as many drives connected as you have USB ports. (assuming your system can support powering that many drives)

And yes, because you can just plug them directly into any other computer, including laptops, without having to worry about carrying a power adapter around.

EDIT: One thing I should point out though, is that the Acronis backups require Acronis to be read, as they are stored in its archive format.
This has pros and cons. The advantage is that it saves space, because it allows for compression (I think it must be uncompressed DFF files where it's saving space) and incremental backups rather than only storing a copy of the files directly.

The disadvantage is that you can't just plug those drives into another computer and access the data.
I should really look into it and see if there is a more portable solution that offers the same features.

With the 1TB drive that I am only doing ~monthly backups to, I do just delete the existing folder on there, and copy the files via Explorer though.
I should probably see if there's a program that handles file sync for that.

I guess you could use something like Truecrypt. I have been very happy with it but I dont encrypt media files. Also, what about locked archive/zip files ?

The issue with this is that you are then uploading a single file. So if you have 300GB of data, you have to upload 300GB every time you sync if it's encrypted.

[Samson]

The issue with this is that you are then uploading a single file. So if you have 300GB of data, you have to upload 300GB every time you sync if it's encrypted.

Truecrypt encrypts/decrypts on the fly and with very little impact on speed.You only need to create the container once (not each time for synching). Not sure how this would works over the internet or using VPNs/SSl and the like but may be worth a google ??
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010296/how-to-encrypt-your-cloud-storage-for-free.html
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-to-securely-encrypt-your-files-in-the-cloud

[6233638]

My point is that when you have an encrypted archive, its contents are encrypted.
So there is no way for the cloud syncing app to know that a change has only been made to a single file inside the archive. You have to re-upload the entire archive every time you make a change.

If the syncing service is able to know when you've only made a change to one of your files inside the "encrypted" archive - then it's not encrypted.

[Samson]

Okay good to know. What I was hoping to explore was the possiblity that you make an encrypted connection to the truecrypt container on the remote server and through this tunnel interface with the container on the fly (as it does locally), without the host or anyone else seeing same.Thanks for the reply,cheers.

[Starchild1]

Be forewarned that Carbonite can only back up about 10-11 gigabytes per day.  If you're ripping a large collection, Carbonite just simply can't keep up (I'm going to let my subscription lapse when the year is up).  I currently have about 1.4 terabytes in my library and Carbonite only has 190 of it gigabytes backed up (I bought Carbonite before I started ripping my cd collection).  Carbonite is fine for offsite backup of important documents.  It's just not a good fit for large music collections.

Mike