Using read-only attribute to safeguard music

[CastleJohn]

I've just started ripping my CD collection to disc as FLAC. I'm wondering how best to safeguard the data. Is it worthwhile setting the "read-only" attribute for each individual music file? Or is there a less tedious way of achieving the same. Is it possible to make a whole disk drive read-only? I've got a whole new disk drive just for my music.

 

[phofman]

After you finish ripping your collection, get another harddrive, make a copy and put the drive into a safe dry place. That means do a safe backup. All other methods are fragile.

 

[dangus]

I like to burn backups to DVD-R as well; more expensive and bulkier, but probably more robust. It may be time to consider Blu-ray, instead: writers are under $100 and media is no longer $30 a disc.

 

[boris81]

Is it worthwhile setting the "read-only" attribute for each individual music file? Or is there a less tedious way of achieving the same. Is it possible to make a whole disk drive read-only? I've got a whole new disk drive just for my music.

You can make folders read only. You will be asked if you want to assign the same permissions to all files and subfolders. The hard drive root is treated as a folder so you can set a whole drive as read only.

You can still delete read-only files but you will be alerted.

Flash memory cards have a hardware read-only switch and so do some USB sticks.

 

[sofaspud]

Remember that if you make FLACs read-only you won't be able to edit tags.

 

[DrDyna]

I've been using XBMC and it has a toggle for allowing you to delete files, but otherwise, changing the root directory to read only would mean that it can't hunt for missing album art and such, as it wouldn't be able to write anything in the folders.

Are you worried about accidental deletion? With delete confirmation left on, you should be reasonably safe.

 

[ozzyscl]

Remember that if you make FLACs read-only you won't be able to edit tags.

+1 and you won't be able to modify the art work, should you end up with the wrong cover for a disc. I happen to me a while ago, I had to go through a process after I ended up with a cover by a guy called "David Gilmore" instead of "David Gilmour" hehe

 

[DrDyna]

Perhaps you could create a user that only has read/write (but not modify) access to the drive with your music on it and then run your music apps as that user so that you can still edit your files manually if you need to.

 

[JRace]

I like to burn backups to DVD-R as well; more expensive and bulkier, but probably more robust. It may be time to consider Blu-ray, instead: writers are under $100 and media is no longer $30 a disc.

Make sure you check your backups often. I have lost many a DVD-r disc over time. They just fail even after being stored and never spun.

I no longer archive anything to optical media. I use dual backups to hard discs. Still not secure though.

 

[raverx3m]

best to have it hooked up to a pc once in a while and run an error check or a program that compares bit by bit to the copy of that drive to make sure theres no lost data or corrupted data on either disk. mine been loosing chunks of data out of a song randomly.

and sometimes albums disappeareing completely leaving only empty folders.

 

[yajnaS]

Perhaps you could create a user that only has read/write (but not modify) access to the drive with your music on it and then run your music apps as that user so that you can still edit your files manually if you need to.

This is my preferred solution. Create a new user "JackTheRipper" and use that account to rip. Make all files writeable only by owner, and world readable.

Of course, this only works if your regular accounts don't have Administrator privilege.

Addendum: of course backup, backup, backup.