Servers: Are we there yet?

Ripping may necessitate internet access for a bit check and artwork and info, but with a laptop, a harddrive, and a dac, you can use a music server without the internet. Convenience from your listening position, however, may lead you to wanting the assistance of the internet.

I started life with a music server with a Mac Powerbook with a SSD, Itunes through Pure Music rips and a back up drive. Then HD Tracks came along only to be followed by double native DSD downloads on a fairly expensive music server with data on SSDrives. I control it from a MS Surface computer using JRiver among other softwards.

If you have a music server, and a large music library, BE SURE to have a reliable backup and restore capability to go along with it.

All devices die eventually including storage devices. Not if but when it happens, you need a backup to be able to restore from. I’ve failures impact me already on 2 occasions in teh lsat 7-8 years or so where a restore of music files was needed.

It goes with the turf and is a unique and critical consideration for any large and valued music file library.

My music server is PLex and Logitech Media servers running on an older Gateway laptop running Windows 10. I rip using dbpoweramp to a conventional Seagate 1.5 TB external USB drive and use another 2.0 Tb attached for backups.

I plan to add an active second backup copy sometime soon. I might consider adding another backup other than directly attached disk drive ( the fastest but not the safest) for this but am not sure yet how. I have about .7 Tb of mostly lossless compressed FLAC files in my library which would take forever to restore from cloud storage over an internet connection if needed.  NAS on my home network is the other option.

I am also still looking at different backup software solutions on Windows 10. Seagate manager worked nicely on Windows 7 but I did not care for newer Seagate Dashboard on Windows 10. I added a native Windows 10 File History backup just last week. It seems to work well but I have not tested a full restore yet and I am not sure if it can be restored easily to non-Windows platform if needed without using the restore function. I’d like to be able to just flat copy all my library files from disk to disk in order to restore if needed, but not sure that is possible.

So still working on the perfect restore solution on Windows 10 if any suggestions but sound quality wise things are the cat’s meow and have been for a few years now.

In the latest issue of Stereophile, Mike L. raved about the Melco server and preferred it to the Antipodes DS. Sounds like very good value, sound- and price-wise.

sbank...

I got the Sony about a week ago and I am happy as a clam in mud.  Nice piece, easy to use,  good sonics.

Another good value server with built-in dac :-

http://www.whathifi.com/cambridge-audio/azur-851n/review