.wav as the archival standard

[Craig Maier]

LOL - no, I do not. But, I always think about purchasing a new toy around this time of the year. Last year it was a Tbyte USB hard drive and this year Rick is thinking about getting one and we were just chatting about it. I also am considering purchasing another one too.

ps - if I recall correctly, you put me onto the idea of the Tbyte drive last year. It was an excellent purchase. Of course, I had to buy a second one to back it up. It really is great having my entire record collection right at the tips of my fingers. I love to take a challenge from friends (using the DCTune Library). I ask them to name a song and I will bring it up and start it playing in three seconds. Almost always, I can do that successfully.

[Geebster]

Yup.... As you know I am a big fan of hard drives!! I lost count on how many I actually have.

Yes. At first I wasn't a big fan of the DC Tune Library, but now I use it all the time. It sure is handy if you need to search for a particular tune or artist.

I always, too, get at least 1 more hard drive this time of year. I am quickly filling up my present one and should think about getting another one.

GB

[Brian]

A salesman at CompUSA told me all the terabyte drives currently on the market were actually one case with two 500 Gb drives in it. He said no one was currently (as of about 2 months ago) able to get the enough platters for a terabyte into one unit, spinning at the right speed and not self-destruct.

His recommendation was to buy two separate 500 Gb drives instead - since two drives meant there was twice the possibility of a fatal mechanical problem in the terabyte unit and none of the manufacturers were currently selling replacement drives. Also, two 500 Gb were actually less expensive (2 x $119) than the terabyte with comparable connectors (USB2 only). He had both in stock and was making less money this way so I couldn't see any obvious reason for him not telling the truth.

Brian

[Geebster]

I don't want to get into the gory details but the COMPUSA salesperson is/was wrong. There have been true TB drives not ganged 500 MB drives for some time.

GB

[Craig Maier]

I do not know much about the subject, but my two Lacie 1 Tbyte drives (d2 Big Disc Extreme) actually contain two drive mechanisms within one case. That does not say that someone does not make a 1 TByte drive per se.

[DougMac]

I Agree with Craig

Two needs for compression have been mentioned: storage capacity and bandwidth. I think there's a big push to deliver high definition video which will require plenty of both. Lowly audio files will benefit, compression will not be needed.

I have a Creative Zen that holds 60 gig. That's more than enough to tote around my favorites, even in uncompressed format. Rhapsody has done an upgrade and chaged to a different DRM scheme. That rendered the Rhapsody files on my Zen unplayable. Rhapsody's response was "no sweat, just delete and reload". I checked and I have more than 3800 selections I've downloaded! Oh well, I needed to house clean anyway...

I'll play the devil's advocate for a second, though. Personally, I don't see how not having built in compression is a deal breaker. Having said that, Craig, are you thinking like an engineer or a marketer? It might be worth researching adding this feature to the next release. From what I understand, it's free and fairly easy to implement. Hey, a sale is a sale!

With >4k 78's, 2500 LPs and 1800 45s I'm going to need all the storage space I can get!

Finally, I'll issue a challenge to Craig. You've got three seconds to find "My Boomerang Won't Come Back"!

Doug

[Craig Maier]

LOL! I punched it in and "Your Boomerang Did Not Come Back!" I guess it still must be somewhere in the outback.

As for the compression issue, I can see its use in the form of MP3's because you do get substantial compression with it. So, when having top quality is not an issue, MP3 is not a bad tradeoff between size, bandwidth and sound quality (actually, I think that they sound pretty good considering how much data is thrown out and they are fine for the car or a portable player). But, cutting a file size just in half, well, I do not know if that is worth the trouble that it can cause.

But - putting my own feelings about it to the side - - -

We will look into it for the future.

[Brian]

I don't want to get into the gory details but the COMPUSA salesperson is/was wrong. There have been true TB drives not ganged 500 MB drives for some time.GB

I do not know much about the subject, but my two Lacie 1 Tbyte drives (d2 Big Disc Extreme) actually contain two drive mechanisms within one case. That does not say that someone does not make a 1 TByte drive per se.

Thanks guys. I checked with Western Digital. In their newly released "Mybook...II" drives it is possible to get 1TB in one drive (or even 2TB in one case with two 1TB drives). They are billed as "dual drive" systems with RAID capabilities. They also advertise that a bad drive can be user-replaced.

However, in my generation of drives (two months ago - and still today in any WD drive that doesn't say "II"), the salesperson was correct; 1TB is produced by using two 500 MB drives - and they are not user-replaceable. I couldn't get an answer from Seagate but a salesperson from Best Buy also said Seagate's was twin 500 MBs.

Hard to keep up with all the changes! But if you're in the market, it might make sense to ask what's "under the hood".

Brian

[Geebster]

I guess I have a bit of an advantage in knowing what is "out there" because I have a few clients where I do their computer work. I knew about the WD TB drives because I recently installed one for a real estate company not too long ago.

GB

[Brian]

I guess I have a bit of an advantage in knowing what is "out there" because I have a few clients where I do their computer work. I knew about the WD TB drives because I recently installed one for a real estate company not too long ago.

GB

Good point. I probably should have mentioned that all the info I was passing on was only about the exterior USB2 drives. Although, in today's real estate market, it's hard to imagine they needed more than a floppy disk! :-)

Brian

[Geebster]

Good point. I probably should have mentioned that all the info I was passing on was only about the exterior USB2 drives. Although, in today's real estate market, it's hard to imagine they needed more than a floppy disk! :-)

Brian

Ha, Ha .... how true.

GB

[cromag]

Based on the world as it is now, WAV files are probably the best bet as a lingua franca among competing formats. I have some SHN files and I can get them into RAR archives by going through WAV files, even though I can't convert directly.

As someone who still prefers to jot off quick notes with a text editor in ASCII, I am amazed at how much space it takes to store a two paragraph Word document! Our ability to fill big drives evolves with the size of the drives! Pretty soon we'll all need Terrabyte drives ... just because!

[DJBohn]

I thought this thread would be worth quoting some information from a compact disc from 1987 (5 years after the first released consumer CD) by a rather vulgar group called "Big Black". The title of the CD is "The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape". The CD itself rather than having a song list has this printed instead:

"When in five years this remarkable achievement of fidelity is obsolete and unplayable on any "modern" equipment, remember: In 1971 the 8-track tape was the state of the art."

On the CD insert, they go on further by saying:

"This compact disc compiled to exploit those of you gullible enough to own the bastardly first-generation digital home music system, contains all-analog masters. Compact discs are quite durable, this being their only advantage over real music media, you should take every opportunity to scratch them, fingerprint them and eat egg and bacon sandwiches off them. Don't worry about their longevity, as Philips will pronounce them obsolete when the next phase of the market-squeezing technology bonanza begins."

I knew someone in the service in 1974 who built his entire music library out of store bought 8-track tapes - more that 300 of them! How many of us will be caught off-guard by some new future advancement? I just thought this all was kind of funny and had a place here...

[Brian]

I knew someone in the service in 1974 who built his entire music library out of store bought 8-track tapes - more that 300 of them! How many of us will be caught off-guard by some new future advancement? I just thought this all was kind of funny and had a place here...

Considering what some of these 8-trk cartridges go for on eBay, your friend may have the last laugh!

Brian

[Dan McDonald]

Yes - you have to love the "ka-chunk" in the middle of songs.