How to Put 6,500 cd's into a shoebox...

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:58 pm

It's a rainy Sunday afternoon here in Manhattan and I was looking at some of ichiro's past comments because he only listens to an i-pod and came to the poll a year ago about record libraries and storage space...I have about 50 feet at home and about 250 feet at the studio, comprising some 12,000 classical cd's in all and maybe 3,000 non classical discs, of course as with everybody else culling rarely brings the expected results and a few hours culling produces maybe 50 cd's I could maybe live without...however last year a company called Slim Devices brought out two digital server devices, the Squeezebox at $300 and The Transporter at $2,000...as an audiophile I was sceptical about quality but I decided to give it a try, I started ripping lossless files at 350mb each and tried playing them, the sound was really good and when I patched in a high end d/a converter there really was no difference in sound quality but the ability to scroll around my collection was manna from heaven, it was easy to program multiple versions of any given piece, I listen to everything from every era and I love to hear how performance practices have changed over the last 90 years, so this device is perfect...but, best of all is that you do not have to put the discs away after a listening session...anyway, I decided to start ripping my collection, I ripped six hours a day on weeknights and fourteen hours a day on weekends and have been doing it since October of last year...so far I have ripped about 6,500 cd's onto ONE HARD DRIVE an amazing feat, I have a 2 terrabyte drive that is about four inches wide and twelve inches deep and six inches high and that costs $800...now that lives under my computer station and is bounced via Airport Express over to the Transporter and then it's in the musical system...of course I need a backup drive and that lives at the studio and lets me use the same files there, it's been a while since we have turned the cd player on at the studio thanks to this device, digital is as much an inevitability for music as it is for photos so I thought some of you might be interested in the storage statistics, if you want to read more about the devices then go to this website and follow it's links...there are audio magazine reviews there also, plus they offer a thirty day trial period...

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html?

Post by **Lance** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:53 pm

What you're doing is making a lot of sense. I must admit, however, that part of the joy of playing music is also looking at the notes or photos on the jewel case. It sounds like you have some impressive equipment on hand. We went from the heavy 78-rpm discs of years ago (which I remember as a child) to LP recordings and then to compact discs. Computers are taking over (and other listening devices). I've kind of drawn the line on my collecting and have decided not to go into any other areas of formats except LPs and CDs. I, of course, use the computer for disc copying, etc. I guess once you get to a certain age, one makes these decisions. So, as my mother always said: "Don't ever get old!"

RebLem · Post by **RebLem** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:08 am

There's just something about a jewel box, and liner notes, and a real compact disc that satisfies the soul. One o' dem machines just doan cut it.

Ralph · Post by **Ralph** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:58 am

It's interesting to hear how a fellow poster manages his small collection. Wouldn't work for some of us.

Opus132 · Post by **Opus132** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:46 am

I did the same thing, except i had to use MP3s as i couldn't afford too big a drive (i have a regular 500gb tuck into an external box). It's ok though as with my current system i really can't tell the difference.

So far i'm over 300gb of stuff. Having my entire collection always a few clicks away has been extremely useful and very convenient, all the more considering the bulk of my music listen is done with my computer (particularly at work).

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:48 pm

There's no reason you can't still file and read the CD booklets and even pop out the back cover and keep that as well.

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:09 pm

slofstra wrote:There's no reason you can't still file and read the CD booklets and even pop out the back cover and keep that as well.

Absolutely, and in the case of boxed sets it's really great, plus i-tunes tags all the metadata including year etc...I then customise the files and add any data I want to add, as a photographer I work on occasion for Apple and I worked on the i-pod and the i-tunes launch, back then I reckon I could only get track listings for about ten percent of the classical discs I had, so digital made no sense, and I do always like to support my clients, but now of the 6,500 cd's I ripped only 6 did not have track listings...

One obscure chinese orchestral disc
One disc from the Fritz Kreisler 11cd box
Two Discs that were not released yet
Two Frescobaldi Disc on Tactus

Not bad for free...

BC · Post by BC » Wed May 16, 2007 12:09 pm

After reading this thread I ordered a Squeezebox. My classical collection is tiny by comparison (but growing fast) and I'm not particularly an audiophile (I used to be more particular, but I decided my priorities were getting out of kilter) so my situation is somewhat different.

The Squeezebox arrived yesterday and I'm delighted with it so far. My files are still on my PC but I will buy an external hard drive soon to free up the space and allow for expansion. Main issue now is editing the information on iTunes to allow for the most efficient scrolling around my collection as it grows.

So much thanks for the information and the Slim Devices link!

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Wed May 16, 2007 12:13 pm

BC wrote:After reading this thread I ordered a Squeezebox. My classical collection is tiny by comparison (but growing fast) and I'm not particularly an audiophile (I used to be more particular, but I decided my priorities were getting out of kilter) so my situation is somewhat different.

The Squeezebox arrived yesterday and I'm delighted with it so far. My files are still on my PC but I will buy an external hard drive soon to free up the space and allow for expansion. Main issue now is editing the information on iTunes to allow for the most efficient scrolling around my collection as it grows.

So much thanks for the information and the Slim Devices link!

That's Great BC...i'm working on a piece that will help you in i-tunes, but you will enjoy the Squeezebox...

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Wed May 16, 2007 12:29 pm

And more good news for disk-based classical music collections this morning as Amazon.com has announced a download service with unrestricted file copying.

Steve Jobs called out the music industry a few months ago, stating, correctly I think, that digital rights management was a major impediment to increased purchases of downloaded music. itunes will also be dropping some of its copying restrictions, at least for music carried from EMI.

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Wed May 16, 2007 12:32 pm

slofstra wrote:And more good news for disk-based classical music collections this morning as Amazon.com has announced a download service with unrestricted file copying.

Steve Jobs called out the music industry a few months ago, stating, correctly I think, that digital rights management was a major impediment to increased purchases of downloaded music. itunes will also be dropping some of its copying restrictions, at least for music carried from EMI.

I think by the end of the year all music will be without drm, Steve Jobs is pretty good at beating people into submission....

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Wed May 16, 2007 1:08 pm

RebLem wrote:There's just something about a jewel box, and liner notes, and a real compact disc that satisfies the soul. One o' dem machines just doan cut it.

Not nearly as much as there is to an oversized, sturdy, cloth-covered, hinged DGG Archiv box with a huge book in 3 languages plus libretto. God I miss those amenities.

BC · Post by BC » Wed May 16, 2007 1:27 pm

Chalkperson wrote:That's Great BC...i'm working on a piece that will help you in i-tunes, but you will enjoy the Squeezebox.

I'd be very grateful for the iTunes help - and I'm sure I'm going to love the Squeezebox, fantastic piece of kit for the price.

Only downside - any Brits see this and want a Squeezebox, DON'T order it from Datakits - I got mine eventually but the after-sales communication was appalling and once I started doing some real research I unearthed many horror stories about how this company have treated other customers - I'm just glad I got what I paid for eventually, because it appears many have not been so lucky.

TheFlayinDutchmn · Post by **TheFlayinDutchmn** » Thu May 17, 2007 9:15 am

Chalkperson wrote:
slofstra wrote:And more good news for disk-based classical music collections this morning as Amazon.com has announced a download service with unrestricted file copying.

Steve Jobs called out the music industry a few months ago, stating, correctly I think, that digital rights management was a major impediment to increased purchases of downloaded music. itunes will also be dropping some of its copying restrictions, at least for music carried from EMI.
I think by the end of the year all music will be without drm, Steve Jobs is pretty good at beating people into submission....

Sorry, couldn't pass this up without comment.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37550

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38636

Check out the dates, who called on which industry for what?

Is it me or could jobs do less wrong than the Dali lama? Last time I checked he was still a salesman. Gates does real, altruistic work and doesn’t have nearly the halo; it’s funny how these things work.

Anyways, nice to hear you have your collection in order, now if only I could manage the same. Is that really how much time it took you? That’s about 60 hours a week and 1400 hours, 23 minutes a CD. I don’t have nearly as many CD’s, but there’s no way I’d have time for that. Sigh, can I retire while still in college?

I look forward to your piece, chalk.

Cheers,
Nick

Teresa B · Post by **Teresa B** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:29 am

How 'bout just putting them in a really big shoebox?

Teresa

TheFlayinDutchmn · Post by **TheFlayinDutchmn** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:46 am

We probably have some big enough here in texas, I'll keep an eye out.

cheers,
nick

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Thu May 17, 2007 12:27 pm

Teresa B wrote:How 'bout just putting them in a really big shoebox?

Teresa

I was hoping to get a box from "The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe" but she had thrown her box out...

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Thu May 17, 2007 12:57 pm

chalkperson,
After reading your post again and looking at the 'slimdevices' web site I have a pretty good understanding of your setup and how these things work. I think what confused me intially is that the 'squeezebox' and 'transporter' are fairly independent devices with different purposes. You just happen to have both. And you've also got the 2000 GB (2 TB) hard drive and a D/A converter in your setup (as well as a computer, I assume). I wondered how you're backing up the drive and getting the files over to your office. That's the one thing holding me back from fooling around with this stuff.

I like the idea of using the squeezebox to listen to web radio. And it looks like you just program it using a browser on any computer on the same network. Can it play 'on demand' streaming audio (as opposed to web radio)? That is, I would want to select a specific link on the BBC radio 3 site and play that through the squeezebox. Can I choose a link using only the squeezebox or do I need to go through the browser every time?

I take it you are using the 'squeezebox' for listening in other places in your residence. How does the 'squeezebox' audio quality compare to the 'transporter's?

ichiro · Post by **ichiro** » Thu May 17, 2007 3:01 pm

I think we haver arrived at a point in terms of storing music in general, where you can pretty much duplicate CD quailty and store massive amounts of music in digital, accessible formats as long as you have a hard drive to store it.

In terms of digital music in general, Im at the point where my 20 gigabyte Ipod (with about 400 hours of classical music, though at a low quality) where I will need to buy a portable hard drive to store more music. It's a good thing that I'm not an audiphile, because it seems my ears are quite thick, even though I'm young. I've tested CD vs Ipod at different rates, and even on a decent sound system I can barely discriminate.

I can defiintely sympathize with anyone older than 30 who likes a good CD collection or record collection. There is something lost in terms of being able to browse the notes, browse your music in that leisurelly form

So yes, listening to music on an Ipod/Mp3 is impersonal, may not be of best quality. ON THE OTHER HAND, being 23, I dont' think I would be able to be exposed to so much great music quickly, which an Ipod enables. If anything , it's been my gateway to classical music, and I'm very grateful for it. Yes, most people my age do not care for classical music and audio quality and other related issues, but if used well, the technology can enhance your listening experience.

There's my long rant, now back to listening to Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe!

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Thu May 17, 2007 3:22 pm

ichiro wrote:I think we haver arrived at a point in terms of storing music in general, where you can pretty much duplicate CD quailty and store massive amounts of music in digital, accessible formats as long as you have a hard drive to store it.

It was one of your posts that made me start this thread...

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Thu May 17, 2007 4:03 pm

TheFlayinDutchmn wrote:Is it me or could jobs do less wrong than the Dali lama? Last time I checked he was still a salesman. Gates does real, altruistic work and doesn’t have nearly the halo; it’s funny how these things work.

Cheers,
Nick

Steve Jobs is a mercurial person, Bill Gates is about as exciting as a PC...

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Thu May 17, 2007 7:52 pm

slofstra wrote:chalkperson,I take it you are using the 'squeezebox' for listening in other places in your residence. How does the 'squeezebox' audio quality compare to the 'transporter's?

I will answer this and address other issues this weekend, thanks to Bosendorfer's Link I will read up on I Tunes for Windows before I do that...

Haydnseek · Post by **Haydnseek** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:36 pm

Music critic Gary Giddins in his monthly column in the current issue of JazzTimes writes about his very positive experiences with an iPod given to him by his "persistent" daughter.

He writes about the way shuffle play "has generated many small revelations" and that he is using earphones more frequently than in a long time ("I had forgotten the intimacy that is a colloray of such antisocial behavior.") He also writes about the way the iPod encourages close listening: "...the iPod replicates the now-ancient experience of choosing a 78-rpm record and attending it repeatedly until every measure is fully absorbed..." He remarks that "It makes a virtue of chance and a vice of indifference."

I'm going to buy one of these devices in the near future to use in my car. I like the idea of creating a playlist of music I know I like but then using shuffle play to introduce a measure of surprise. The iPod should be a good tool for listening to audiobooks too.

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Thu May 17, 2007 9:44 pm

Haydnseek wrote:Music critic Gary Giddins in his monthly column in the current issue of JazzTimes writes about his very positive experiences with an iPod given to him by his "persistent" daughter.

He writes about the way shuffle play "has generated many small revelations" and that he is using earphones more frequently than in a long time ("I had forgotten the intimacy that is a colloray of such antisocial behavior.") He also writes about the way the iPod encourages close listening: "...the iPod replicates the now-ancient experience of choosing a 78-rpm record and attending it repeatedly until every measure is fully absorbed..." He remarks that "It makes a virtue of chance and a vice of indifference."

I'm going to buy one of these devices in the near future to use in my car. I like the idea of creating a playlist of music I know I like but then using shuffle play to introduce a measure of surprise. The iPod should be a good tool for listening to audiobooks too.

The other reason to get one, and I myself don't have one - yet, although I've bought numerous for my kids, is to listen to 'podcasts'. One of my friends never listens to radio anymore - his ipod has become a kind of TIVO for radio. He downloads all the newscasts and commentary he wants to listen to by subscribing to various items on the CBC and other areas. If BBC radio 3 goes to podcasts, and they are experimenting with them now, ipod here I come. I've already got the jack in one car.

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. Jobs is an evangelist, Gates is a strategist. Jobs is marketing, Gates is operations. I just attended a talk in which the speaker described Gates as the greatest business leader of our time. While other business leaders tend to focus their companies on a single mission, or a single strategy, Gates is superb at managing multiple strategies, trading off risk against commitment - in this speaker's view, this is what upper management should be doing. Kind of the antithesis of mission statements, 'good to great', and all the typical 'success in business' strategies.

TheFlayinDutchmn · Post by **TheFlayinDutchmn** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:02 am

Mercurial? Steve jobs is a 14 year old suburban girl? Well sorry, didn’t mean to jack your thread, just pointing out that it was EMI who deserve the credit and good will here. And I’m always fascinated by how powerful an effect a personality can have, such a lack of substance, I don’t think it draws me that much, just fascinating how it affects others. Can’t decide whether or not it’s a good thing. He sure as hell is a damn good salesman though.

Anyway, why has no one made any The Who comments here yet?

Cheers,
nick

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:24 am

slofstra wrote:Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. Jobs is an evangelist, Gates is a strategist. Jobs is marketing, Gates is operations. I just attended a talk in which the speaker described Gates as the greatest business leader of our time.

I recall Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds' interview with Gates father. "Bill might have known something about computers, but he was a marketing genius." I think it referred to Gates' strategy for making MS operating system dominant in the PC market. In some ways, he was the modern Mr. Sears.

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Fri May 18, 2007 8:35 am

TheFlayinDutchmn wrote:Mercurial? Steve jobs is a 14 year old suburban girl? Well sorry, didn’t mean to jack your thread, just pointing out that it was EMI who deserve the credit and good will here. And I’m always fascinated by how powerful an effect a personality can have, such a lack of substance, I don’t think it draws me that much, just fascinating how it affects others. Can’t decide whether or not it’s a good thing. He sure as hell is a damn good salesman though.

Anyway, why has no one made any The Who comments here yet?

Cheers,
nick

You are making an assumption, it says EMI are talking with Online Retailers, everything Steve Jobs does is shrouded in secrecy/paranoia so you don't really know whose idea it was...but your Editorial may simply have been a way to Talk about Appple without naming them, remember that with no DRM the price goes up...so the Beatles Catalog will bring in more revenue than with DRM...

What are you referring to when you mention The Who...they are another of my Clients from way back then...

TheFlayinDutchmn · Post by **TheFlayinDutchmn** » Fri May 18, 2007 11:24 am

Damn, well I was wrong about the dates. Have a read though.

Follow though the Google result, have to be wsj subscriber otherwise

Slimy, not that I expect better from say, Microsoft… but gates isn’t treated like a saint, jobs is, I guess it doesn’t really matter though, we're all here to make money, apparently. I just like to b*ch.

Cause she’s playin all night,
And the music’s all right…

Cheers,
nick

mickey · Post by **mickey** » Fri May 18, 2007 11:37 am

I also have all my music digitized and stored on external harddrive... i don't keep it in lossless though.. i knock it down to 320 which isnt much of a noticeable difference in my opininion..

anyway thought i'd share how i tag all my music in itunes... i keep it as simple as possible so search and scrolling is easy and i dont have too many unneccesary layers of information to digest while trying to find a song.. all of my music goes into the following format:

in the song title column
work name [conductor - musicians/orchestra - soloists]
example: Symphony No. 8 - III - Allegro non troppo [Rostropovich - London Symphony Orchestra].

in the artist column
last name, first name of composer
example: Shostakovich, Dmitri

i then keep the record label name and recording number in the comments field...

simple enough but allows for just about all the searching one needs

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Mon May 28, 2007 12:39 pm

chalkperson,
I've been contemplating a Transporter/ Squeezebox set up and one of my questions got lost in the noise:

How do you back up your 2 TB drive with all your music? Do you have copies at home and at the workplace?

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Mon May 28, 2007 1:57 pm

slofstra wrote:chalkperson,
I've been contemplating a Transporter/ Squeezebox set up and one of my questions got lost in the noise:

How do you back up your 2 TB drive with all your music? Do you have copies at home and at the workplace?

I have a 2TB drive linked to my I-Mac and store directly onto that drive, inside I have seven music folders, I start a new folder about every 250 gigabytes. That drive is then backed up to a second identical drive that serves as a backup at home, after spending nearly a year doing this i'm not going to lose data so I triple backup things...then, at the studio is a second 2TB drive, identical to the two drives at home..we no longer play cd's at the studio, I have a Transporter there as well...I am about 40 GB away from filling the drive up at home, that is around 7,000 cd's ripped to Apple Lossless files, about 350 mb per cd...as for the Transporter/Squeezebox choice I will put it this way...The Squeezebox is a cheap way to play digital files in any room in your house, it has good quality sound but I would recomend putting it thru a D/A Converter to get the best sound, if you do that then there is no discernable difference between that and the Original CD...The Transporter contains a really good D/A converter and you can also run other components thru it...and just like their advertising says, it gives Sound Quality as good as an expensive CD player...my advice to you would be to get a Transporter for your Listening Room and then put Squeezeboxes in any room you want music in, you can play different music or the same music in any room this way, just attach the Squeezebox to Powered Speakers or anything with an Aux Imput...BUT I should also point out there is one other Option available to you which is a Product from Sonus...it's certainly as good, has a different kind of system, it creates it's own network and has a LCD Display on it...it can be found by following this link...

http://www.sonos.com/products/?tref=ghome

I realised the other day that the Airport Express/Extreme Wireless Network Devices I use only work with a Mac, I cannot therefore tell you exactly how it would work on a PC but Maestro Jobs assures me that it can be done, although, he also thinks you should buy a Mac...

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Mon May 28, 2007 4:25 pm

So - you have a 2 TB drive at home, a second 2 TB drive at home for backup, and a third 2 TB drive at the studio. (I'm not trying to be pedantic but want to be perfectly clear on it). I take it that you use the second 2 TB drive to transfer stuff between the studio and home or do you accomplish that some other way?

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Mon May 28, 2007 4:49 pm

slofstra wrote:So - you have a 2 TB drive at home, a second 2 TB drive at home for backup, and a third 2 TB drive at the studio. (I'm not trying to be pedantic but want to be perfectly clear on it). I take it that you use the second 2 TB drive to transfer stuff between the studio and home or do you accomplish that some other way?

No worries about being pedantic, it took me a while to figure this all out anyway...

Drive One is the permanent Music Drive and ALL data changes occur on this drive ONLY...

Drive Two is the BackUp Drive that is connected to Drive One, this drive when Updated is the taken to the Studio to replace Drive Three...

Drive Three then goes back home to be updated periodically, then it returns to the Studio to replace Drive Two which as you have guessed comes Home...

The reason the drives are continually Updated and moved around is that there is so much work that can be done on the I-Tunes database that I am constasntly updating Data, because of this Updating Process Drive One is the only one whose Data is changed continually, on the other drives they are TOTALLY updated, wiped clean and totally empty before copying the Music Folders...Changing Metadata can often re-name Folders as well as tgging Data...because there are three drives I always have TWO complete drives even when I Wipe and Update the Third...Having asked around I get the impression that very few I-Tues owners know about the Update Metadata Box, inside of which I add all my new data...i'll write more on that soon...

ps I also transfer Full Music Folders to the studio on small 250 Gig Drives, the drives are very heavy and also Wiping them takes 24 hours so I don't do it too often...

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:34 am

Chalkperson wrote:The reason the drives are continually Updated and moved around is that there is so much work that can be done on the I-Tunes database that I am constasntly updating Data, because of this Updating Process Drive One is the only one whose Data is changed continually, on the other drives they are TOTALLY updated, wiped clean and totally empty before copying the Music Folders...Changing Metadata can often re-name Folders as well as tgging Data...because there are three drives I always have TWO complete drives even when I Wipe and Update the Third...

I don't want to give the wrong impression about I-tunes here, I only Wipe and Replace drives to update Metadata because I have people at the studio who do that for me, if you are only using one Device, ie at home, you need not to this because you have both drives at home, and you have no reason to unplug or move them, in fact if you want to use Squeezebox in a second location (work or second home) you can use the internet and you can access your music files from another location, I dont do that because we are always swapping the music files onto I-Pods at the studio...as for backing up in general, I use a program called Silverkeeper, I don't know what programes you have on PC but you need some kind of BackUp program to do it...hope this all makes sense...

slofstra · Post by **slofstra** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:50 am

No, I would be doing the same as you. That is, I want this at home and at the office, and rotate two drives between backup and active use at the office. The main difference is that I would keep the main drive and backup at the office with the copy in use at home. I would never committ any music to disk without having two complete copies in two distinct locations. I also don't want to waste time burning DVDs or CDs for backup. I see this being a supplemental library - not to replace my main CD collection. Actually the music is secondary; the main purpose of the installation, for me, would be the video and photo work.
And maybe this shoud all be done with Macs. I use Adobe Premiere (as usual I'm digressing) and Photoshop. I've always hated their interfaces, Photoshop's anyway.
The other thing one has to think of is that every 5-10 years the storage technology will change, and the music will need to be copied forward. You can't get behind the curve on the storage technology you use, or you end up with stored data which nothing can play or read. (I think of things I have in drawers - old tapes, ZIP disks, Apple II games, etc.)

We also have a server for our business activities, but it has a decent high speed tape which we take off site.

ch1525 · Post by **ch1525** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:20 am

slofstra wrote:

Heck yes I would have invested!!!

Chalkperson · Post by **Chalkperson** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:28 am

slofstra wrote:The other thing one has to think of is that every 5-10 years the storage technology will change, and the music will need to be copied forward. You can't get behind the curve on the storage technology you use, or you end up with stored data which nothing can play or read. (I think of things I have in drawers - old tapes, ZIP disks, Apple II games, etc.)

Oh how I loved Zip and Jazz Drives, the 44 MEGABYTE Syquest Drives, 128 mb Optical and all those other 'alternate' methods of storage...oh and the good old SCSI Interface...hard drive storage is probably the best bet, for now at least, at the studio we keep triple BackUp on the photo files AND Double BackUp on the RAW Files...someone at APS once told me that you can never be too Paranoid about BackUp...also, I agree you would be best off with a Mac, I would suggest the 24 inch I-Mac, that's what I use at home...

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