usb external drive

[alocispepraluger102]

i'm a newby at saving my reams of recorded material on usb hard drives.

do any readers have suggestions as to economical efficient choices?

[mjzee]

Depending on the size of your music collection, I'd get either a 500gb or 1tb hard drive. Make sure you get a good brand: Maxtor, Western Digital, LaCie are good choices. Cruise the Amazon user comments for good feedback.

To organize your music collection, I would use iTunes. Under Preferences/Advanced..., make sure "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is checked, and, in the same window, Change the iTunes Music folder location to your new USB external drive. Then set iTunes to work. It will find all the music on your computer, move it to the USB drive, and show it in iTunes.

For more info, see "Adding content on your computer to iTunes" here: iTunes support

Don't forget to also find a backup solution, whether a second hard drive or other.

[randyhersom]

I recommend you get a separate enclosure and put an internal hard drive in it. The externals have a high failure rate and the failures are in the enclosure, not the hard drive. This saves you a later choice of whether to void the warranty in an effort to save the data. We have used three different brand names and have had failures in each (Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor).

[alocispepraluger102]

Depending on the size of your music collection, I'd get either a 500gb or 1tb hard drive. Make sure you get a good brand: Maxtor, Western Digital, LaCie are good choices. Cruise the Amazon user comments for good feedback.

To organize your music collection, I would use iTunes. Under Preferences/Advanced..., make sure "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is checked, and, in the same window, Change the iTunes Music folder location to your new USB external drive. Then set iTunes to work. It will find all the music on your computer, move it to the USB drive, and show it in iTunes.

For more info, see "Adding content on your computer to iTunes" here: iTunes support

Don't forget to also find a backup solution, whether a second hard drive or other.

thanks for the fine info.

i will do

Edited July 5, 2009 by alocispepraluger102

[alocispepraluger102]

I recommend you get a separate enclosure and put an internal hard drive in it. The externals have a high failure rate and the failures are in the enclosure, not the hard drive. This saves you a later choice of whether to void the warranty in an effort to save the data. We have used three different brand names and have had failures in each (Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor).

yuk.

thanks. my guess would have been a low failure rate.

new technologies and atrophy over time are worries, as well.

could lighting strikes/power spikes wreak havoc with a plugged in drive?

Edited July 5, 2009 by alocispepraluger102

[mjzee]

could lighting strikes/power spikes wreak havoc with a plugged in drive?

Yes. I'd suggest an uninterruptible power supply/surge protector (I use something like this: APC, which you can also keep your computer plugged into) and a backup solution (such as a second EHD) that you can unplug and keep somewhere else, like in a closet. Considering how much you probably originally paid for your music collection, these are small investments to protect them.

[seeline]

I started using MediaMonkey for my digital music a few years ago, and haven't looked back since: http://www.mediamonkey.com/

(Definitely *not* an iTunes fan - I took it off my main computer a while back and haven't bothered installing it on my backup machine.)

But all of the different music categorizing programs out there have their strong and weak points - really, it comes down to personal preference in the end.

Back to MediaMonkey: it has a lot of bells and whistles that I don't need (or use), but the basic functions are very solid, and (I think) much easier to use than iTunes.

Edited July 5, 2009 by seeline