How to manage a big itunes library?

Wow I was ready to pull the trigger on a 4TB Drobo. I only needed to find out if it was to noisy. Sounds like that idea may be out the window. Now it sounds like it isn't reliable. Damn someone needs to come out with a great big drive that is reliable. They'd get rich it sounds like.

Ejlif - I don't think it's the drive that's unreliable, it is the RAID device itself and the interface with the drives. These are not "great big drives", as you intimated. A RAID unit usually has multiple slots that house many duplicate-sized hard drives - you buy whichever SATA (or whatever type the RAID device uses) raw hard drive that you choose and just slide them into the slots. The RAID hardware is what you are paying for in the case of these modular boxes. The hardware is what allows you to create and maintain seamless redundant copy drives in multiple slots and keep the system running in the the event of a drive failure. It also would have to keep all those drives cool as multiple large drives are bound to generate some heat. As someone pointed out, in the event of a disaster such as a flood, fire or theft you'd be SOL as all copies would likely be damaged/lost (they'd all be contained within that device unless you occasionally pull and replace a drive with a replacement and put the copy drive in a safe, off-site location. The RAID devices DO make the process of keeping/maintaining a backup of large amounts of data a very easy process if the device works properly. I don't know what the problems folks are having with the Drobo units are, but you should be able to use any brand of SATA drive you choose within the box itself. If the thing is noisy it is likely a problem with the cooling fan(s) and or the specific drives that are chosen by the user (some drives are noisier than others), as well as how the case of the device may amplify that noise.

Marco

I agree with Mlsstl's take, which is that RAID is not really important. What I need is to periodically backup the library to a separate drive and, ideally, store it offsite. I've just ordered a WB MyBook Studio II 2TB. If it works out, I'll need to get a second one, or something like it, to use for backup. The Studio II has Firewire as well as USB (and eSATA) connections. I'll try it in the music system connected via FW. If that doesn't work, I'll either place it on the other side of the wall and run FW through, or attach it to the router's USB port and access it wirelesly (I think that will work).

I have read that, if you are running USB from your computer to a DAC, you should not attach storage via USB also. Too much contention for the USB bus, or something like that.

I've been talking with Ejlif about this and doing some research on drives and backup and all that. Seems like it comes down to this:

1. Setup needs to be quiet as possible (or) removed to another room, ventilated closet, etc.
2. Setup needs unlimited* growth potential.
3. Setup needs to be backed up easily. Said backup needs to be easily transportable to another site (i.e. work, friend's home, etc.)

Given that I was thinking of getting the Western Digital MyBook Mirror Edition. The drive is set up with two drives, one which mirrors the other RAID 1. Here's a link to the drive:

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=466

From there, I copy all my music in iTunes over to this drive and I'm good to go. iTunes reads from one disk while the second disk acts as a local backup. I can then take a new third disk (same size) and, once parity is achieved between the two disks, swap in the new disk, take the old disk and store it offsite. BAM! Local backup, offsite backup. Ahh...

But what about adding more disk space? Take advantage of iTunes...you can add new drives as your library grows and it will remember the previous drives you've used. It's an intuitive feature but it does work.

These drives are fanless, *green* and really solid. The downside here is that these drives are USB. Though I'm not certain how much of a downside that really is.

Thoughts?

Jwynacht - It's a sound strategy, yes. USB should be just fine as streaming music is not demanding of a fast interface. It will not be any problem at all in that respect. It will slow things down when you start copying large amounts of files from one drive to another since the interface is comparatively slow. The other disadvantage may be in using a 'green' drive, with no cooling fan, your drive life will likely be shortened as heat is an enemy of drive life. Still, those drives are certainly the most quiet (quiet as a church mouse) and I use them myself (Lacie 500 gig version of basically the same thing). Yes, iTunes can look at as many drives as you care to store your library on. In turn you can consolidate your library onto one large drive with just that command: "Consolidate Library" - in this case iTunes will COPY all of your music files to whichever hard drive is currently pointed to as the main library. It will leave all the original files in tact on whatever drive they were originally on. You, of course, need to have enough space on the drive you point it at to store all those files. Here is a case where a USB interface would seriously bog things down with a large library. As long as you can walk away from it you'll be fine, but if you plan to hang around and wait, you better get a good book.