Options for accessing audio from large digital music collections.

[John L]

There is a basic question that I would like to ask of people who listen to large collections of digital music.   

I have always stored my collection on (multiple) hard drives, which has worked out well as the capacity of hard drives has expanded even faster than my (rather enormous) digital music collection.   For a long time, however, I accessed the music for listening through iPods.  Now that iPods have become extinct and my remaining ones are wearing out or have already stopped functioning, my day-to-day audio access to my music collection has become more difficult.  

So I declared that the time has come to access audio from my music collection directly through a designated computer and (backed up) hard drive.  I bought a basic PC for this purpose and tried to hook up a My Book hard drive with my entire music collection.   To my surprise, when I tried to listen to music, My Book would function fine for about 5 minutes, but then go to sleep for a minute before automatically waking up (rebooting).  So the music continually stops and starts up again.  Not acceptable.

So I am wondering what is up and what other people do in similar situations.  Is it that I have chosen the wrong hard drive, the wrong approach to access, or something else?    Is there a specific hard drive that has known high reliability for this purpose?

[Kevin Bresnahan]

If this new PC is a Windows machine, you change change the power setting so that the external HD never goes to sleep. It's probably under the USB power setting where it asks if you want to shut off USB ports to save power. You'll get a nag message when you turn it off but just ignore it. I turn off pretty much all of those power savers because of things like this.

[HutchFan]

An even more simplistic way to prevent a PC from going to sleep: 

1. Open Windows Media Player. 
2. Select and play a short video. 
3. Mute the sound (using the setting in the player) and turn on the Repeat function.

I do this whenever I'm presenting at an in-person meeting.  It prevents the screen-saver/lock function from automatically coming on if I don't happen to touch the PC for five minutes.  My company locks down those sorts of settings on our PCs for security purposes.  But it's very disruptive and annoying to have to re-login in the middle of a meeting.  This workaround solves that problem.   

I think it might work for your purposes too, @John L. 

 

[John L]

1 hour ago, bresna said:

If this new PC is a Windows machine, you change change the power setting so that the external HD never goes to sleep. It's probably under the USB power setting where it asks if you want to shut off USB ports to save power. You'll get a nag message when you turn it off but just ignore it. I turn off pretty much all of those power savers because of things like this.

Thanks, Kevin.  Unfortunately, I have already done this.  I think that It is not a matter of the PC putting the HD to sleep, but the HD going to sleep (and waking up) by itself periodically.  Maybe it is just a defective HD?   But maybe there is a certain (more reliable) type of HD that I should use before I spend another 30 hours copying all of my music files to another device and get maybe get similar results? 

Or could it be a defective PC?

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

An even more simplistic way to prevent a PC from going to sleep: 

1. Open Windows Media Player. 
2. Select and play a short video. 
3. Mute the sound (using the setting in the player) and turn on the Repeat function.

I do this whenever I'm presenting at an in-person meeting.  It prevents the screen-saver/lock function from automatically coming on if I don't happen to touch the PC for five minutes.  My company locks down those sorts of settings on our PCs for security purposes.  But it's very disruptive and annoying to have to re-login in the middle of a meeting.  This workaround solves that problem.   

I think it might work for your purposes too, @John L. 

 

Thanks, but it is not the PC that is going to sleep in my case.   

Edited December 11, 2023 by John L

[Kevin Bresnahan]

The thing that's weird is that the action of playing music off of that external hard drive should be enough to keep it playing anyway. Usually they only go to sleep when there's no activity. I actually used an external hard drive at work in my office for years & I never had an issue with it shutting down mid-play. I did have it "disappear" when I'd go to play some music off of it after a period of inactivity but never when it was playing.

On my Windows PC at home, I only use external drives to back up my music & data though. On my Windows mini tower PC (I know - who has a mini tower these days?), I installed a second 1 TB internal hard drive (not RAID) that I use as an internal "external" hard drive that I only use for my music. Because it's on the internal PC bus, it's faster and it never shuts down due to any power saving features. Internal drives like this are really cheap these days.

BTW - on my Windows PC, I use the old "Windows Media Player" app to play my music. As dated as it is, it handles a huge library like mine better than any other music playing app I've tried - and I've tried a lot of them.

[John L]

11 minutes ago, bresna said:

The thing that's weird is that the action of playing music off of that external hard drive should be enough to keep it playing anyway. Usually they only go to sleep when there's no activity. I actually used an external hard drive at work in my office for years & I never had an issue with it shutting down mid-play. I did have it "disappear" when I'd go to play some music off of it after a period of inactivity but never when it was playing.

On my Windows PC at home, I only use external drives to back up my music & data though. On my Windows mini tower PC (I know - who has a mini tower these days?), I installed a second 1 TB internal hard drive (not RAID) that I use as an internal "external" hard drive that I only use for my music. Because it's on the internal PC bus, it's faster and it never shuts down due to any power saving features. Internal drives like this are really cheap these days.

BTW - on my Windows PC, I use the old "Windows Media Player" app to play my music. As dated as it is, it handles a huge library like mine better than any other music playing app I've tried - and I've tried a lot of them.

Thanks, Kevin.  That internal drive sounds like a tempting option.   But my digital music library is more like 3 TB.   So I would need one at least three times as large.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

4 TB for under $100: https://www.newegg.com/seagate-ironwolf-st4000vn006-4tb/p/N82E16822185030

[John L]

3 minutes ago, bresna said:

4 TB for under $100: https://www.newegg.com/seagate-ironwolf-st4000vn006-4tb/p/N82E16822185030

Thanks!    Pending what other suggestions I might get here, maybe I will try this.   

John

[mjzee]

You might want to look into an SSD instead of a spinning platter read by an arm (EHD).  An SSD has no mechanical components that can break (or fall asleep).  For years, a 4 TB SSD was prohibitively expensive, but they're currently far more reasonably priced (indeed, that's the reason EHD prices have fallen further).  A Crucial X8 4TB Portable SSD is now available on Amazon for $199.99.  

[Jim Duckworth]

Perhaps this is not the answer you seek, but I have a great deal of my music downloaded onto my computer.  I generally create playlists and organize the music from Itunes.  Apple music allows me to access my Itunes library anywhere, so that's been the answer for me. 

[rostasi]

Did you check your settings on the WD Utilities app that comes with the drive?
It works the same way as the settings on the PC that was just recommended,
but is in the prefs of the Utilities app.

I mention this because a very long time ago,
I had a similar problem. I now have a different setup
because of the size of my collection (28 TB of drives).

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by rostasi

[mjzee]

3 minutes ago, Jim Duckworth said:

Perhaps this is not the answer you seek, but I have a great deal of my music downloaded onto my computer.  I generally create playlists and organize the music from Itunes.  Apple music allows me to access my Itunes library anywhere, so that's been the answer for me. 

Same with me.  On my iMac desktop, through iTunes/Music I access my 4 TB SSD (2.4 TB currently used), which is automatically backed-up nightly to a second 4 TB SSD.  I can listen to the music through my iMac, or send it to my stereo using AirPlay.

[rostasi]

Also, is it not possible to load tunes on a cell phone?
I've often thought that if my iPod ever goes,
I can probably buy a phone to do the same job.
I've never had a cell phone, so I don't really know
the answer to this, but it seems like this could be the case?

Edited December 11, 2023 by rostasi

[Stompin at the Savoy]

Either the My Book external drive has some sort of errant sleep setting or it is simply defective.  I have several 4 Terabyte portable hard drives that I use to store digital music and none have this problem.  I don't know why you would prefer a large format device like My Book to the small 4 TB devices like My Passport, which works great for me.  Seagate Expansion 4 TB is good too.

Yes, an iPhone is just as good as an iPod for storing some music.  The thing is most phones have fairly limited storage capacity.  I use a digital Sony Walkman, which stores music on SD cards, which come in many sizes including 500 G and 1 TB.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Stompin at the Savoy

[mjzee]

Before you judge your My Book defective, try reformatting it and starting over (copying from your backup).  I have no use for the software they load on the EHDs, and perhaps that's the source of the problem.

22 minutes ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

Yes, an iPhone is just as good as an iPod for storing some music.  The thing is most phones have fairly limited storage capacity.

One problem I've found with playing music from iPhones (as opposed to iPods) is if you're in the middle of a long track and stop listening, the iPhone won't remember where you left off on the track, and will start again at the track's beginning when you resume listening.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

31 minutes ago, mjzee said:

 

One problem I've found with playing music from iPhones (as opposed to iPods) is if you're in the middle of a long track and stop listening, the iPhone won't remember where you left off on the track, and will start again at the track's beginning when you resume listening.

I don't seem to have that problem. If you use pause instead of just getting out of the app it has the same effect.  When you return to the app it starts where you left off.  At least on my 2 or 3 year old iphone.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Stompin at the Savoy

[John L]

3 hours ago, mjzee said:

You might want to look into an SSD instead of a spinning platter read by an arm (EHD).  An SSD has no mechanical components that can break (or fall asleep).  For years, a 4 TB SSD was prohibitively expensive, but they're currently far more reasonably priced (indeed, that's the reason EHD prices have fallen further).  A Crucial X8 4TB Portable SSD is now available on Amazon for $199.99.  

Thank you for this advice.  I will consider it.

3 hours ago, rostasi said:

Did you check your settings on the WD Utilities app that comes with the drive?
It works the same way as the settings on the PC that was just recommended,
but is in the prefs of the Utilities app.

I mention this because a very long time ago,
I had a similar problem. I now have a different setup
because of the size of my collection (28 TB of drives).

 

Very interesting!  Thank you.  I have not tried this and will do so.

1 hour ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

Either the My Book external drive has some sort of errant sleep setting or it is simply defective.  I have several 4 Terabyte portable hard drives that I use to store digital music and none have this problem.  I don't know why you would prefer a large format device like My Book to the small 4 TB devices like My Passport, which works great for me.  Seagate Expansion 4 TB is good too.

Yes, an iPhone is just as good as an iPod for storing some music.  The thing is most phones have fairly limited storage capacity.  I use a digital Sony Walkman, which stores music on SD cards, which come in many sizes including 500 G and 1 TB.

OK.  I an getting increasingly encouraged that I will find a solutions.

Many thanks to everyone for all of this help.

[JSngry]

Let's think outside the box and whatever platform choice you make, use it for only records you've never heard before. 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Let's think outside the box and whatever platform choice you make, use it for only records you've never heard before. 

Why? That's the whole point of having 4 TB or more of music files attached to a computer or device: you can instantly call up any album or track you want.

[JSngry]

Stream what you already have. Store what you don't. Let somebody else worry about always buying new hardware. 

There's always more that you don't know than there is that you do. 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

Just now, JSngry said:

Stream what you already have. Store what you don't. Let somebody else worry about always buying new hardware. 

There's always more that you don't know than there is that you do. 

Stream what you have?  Why bother to have it in the first place, just stream it then.  If, of course you are satisfied with the resolution you are getting with streaming.  Which I am not.  Nor do I want to listen to ads.  And why would I pay to not have ads when I already own the freakin' music? Nope, doesn't work for me.

[JSngry]

I see that! 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

The beauty of curating your own collection of digital music is you can access your whole collection or giant big chunks of it - instantly and anywhere.  Plus you can store the cds etc in a storage unit and free up space at home.  Or even sell them off and dispense with the hard-copies altogether.  I haven't quite got there yet but I am thinking about it.

The downside is you have to do a lot of curatorial tasks, keep backups, occasionally buy new hardware.

Of course if you haven't been ripping your cds all along, inputting your collection could be a really huge task.

[JSngry]

I'm at the point to where the only music I want to deal in terms of "curation" (a yucky word at this point, work, not fun) is music I've yet to hear.

Otherwise, the ongoing pursuit of new places to put old things is starting to become...repugnant, actually. Neither time nor energy are infinite resources. Nor is money, for that matter. So if I want to look for a new place, it will be for new things. 

[rostasi]

I have clunky “My Books” on the floor in my office
that I’m no longer using - usually because they’ve
just given out and you can’t just open them up and
get the drive out (believe me, I had to give up a number
of times), so they’re doorstops now. I’m more partial 
to drives that are not closely encased, so if you want
to stick with something other than an SSD, then either
go with bare drives in a docking station or bay enclosure
… and if you do stick with an enclosure, then, yes,
I’d second the “My Passport” idea.

Also, I’d add: the only closely encased drives I get now
are ones sent to me filled with music that I’ve saved
”in the cloud.” The cloud service I use will send me them
in 8 TB encased drives if I want to safekeep. This means
that they’re filled drives in storage - unused - so I don’t 
have to be worried about “wear and tear” on them.

Edited December 12, 2023 by rostasi