cd's copy to cdr or harddisk to backup

[then_dude]

Hello people,

a lot of topics have come around with this issue.

well i'm not completely certain what to do.


i have a lot of audio cd's which i play on my pc,
the originals are with my dad so that me and my brother can use them.
but i would like to back up these cd's, is it wise to buy an extra harddisk
and put everything on it, and then store this harddisk in a safe place ?

or would be better to burn everyhting on golden dye discs and store them in the dark ?

the harddisk is cheaper i suppose, the cdr could be safer in the long run (20 years)
and if i store them on the harddisk, does it harm to store the in dataloss compression ?

what do you think ?

thanx

[analog_sa]

Definitely a hard disk. Sooner or later your "backups" will reach into the terabyte region and any other form of backup will be too cumbersome. Needless to mention always keep a copy unless you really enjoy ripping cds twice.

[then_dude]

thanks a lot

with a copy, you mean a copy on another hard disk ?

how long does a cd last ? I mean an original not a copy ?
i suppose they last forever (i rip my cd's when i buy them and then put them in my closet) when not scratched ?

thanks

[Mooly]

I've no problems with CD's from when CD was launched in the 80's
There is no point backing up originals just in case they have a problem... they won't.

If you just play them on a PC I would rip using file compression (MP3, WMA) as... Hmmm... PC's just 'aint Hifi lol, and use the originals on your main system.

[analog_sa]

Originally Posted by Mooly

PC's just 'aint Hifi lol

You looking for a fight?

[Mooly]

Originally Posted by analog_sa

You looking for a fight?

Lol

[then_dude]

if you keep them on your harddisk, in what format do you do this ?

1)every song in wav
2)the complete cd in one wav file with a cue file
3)flac or some other dataloss compression ?

thanks
(indeed a harddisk will be fine, i only have 80gb of cd's on my harddisk, somewhere around 130 cd's)

greetz

[wwenze]

What is "golden dye"?

I'd settle for rip everything onto the HDD and keep the CD. Run its digital out into a DAC like with a CDP and it's largely the same, but you get DSP.

.ape and .tta are getting popular nowadays due to slightly better compression and performance vs flac which has gained wider compatibility, but even the best of lossless compression only compress a factor of 1.5 at best, so I like to keep as .wav. Wav doesn't preserve any non-music data (e.g. index and tags) though.

I'm a hater of complete CD rips with cue files and prefer the tracks one by one. So that it's easier to create playlists and move files..

[then_dude]

golden dye,

well normally a gold layer is used to put the data on, the gold layer isn't as easily broken down as the other materials.

Golden dye isn't always gold: sometimes they use a golden paint to make it look like.

few manufactures make them (the real gold ones) they cost more then double for a disc, but even then it is not to expensive. I have golden discs, more then 10 years old, daily used and still no errors on it. so they have proven to be very good.

[davidsrsb]

Mooly is lucky, I have several cds with severe rot setting in

The most common lossless compression for PCs is flac. Don't use a lossy codec like mp3 or ogg as you cannot really call these a backup, as data is gone for good