Transfering files between External Hard Drives

[Luis2045]

Hello,

 

This is my first post ever, so I apologize if this question sounds too silly or if this has been discussed in another topic. I have a western digital 1 TB external hard drive with all my music files in AIFF and also AAC 320 kbps for my portable devices (Ipod Classic) this hard drive has been very reliable and I use it only to keep a backup for my "archival copy" music files and now is completely full, so I need to buy a new one for my constant-increasing music collection. Therefore, I was thinking of a 2 TB one WD or Seagate (can't decide which one yet) so I have plenty more space, and I wanted to ask you guys if by transfering these files from one external hard drive to another one (in order to have 2 copies of everything up untill now) just by doing this Do the music files lose any quality? Should I just transfer the music to a new external hard drive or re-rip everything to make sure I have like a fresh brand new copy of all my CD's? I'm just cofused!

I hope anyone can help me.

Thank you, all.

Luis

 

[katywu]

The files will be copied as an exact bit for bit copy from one hard disk to another, therefore the copying process will not cause any loss in quality.

 

Mike

 

[sandyk]

Luis

There will be a further small degradation, check sums notwithstanding, that is unlikely to be noticeable with your present files and equipment.

SandyK

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/File-format?page=4

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

No disrespect SandyK, but as it stands now your comments are not correct. Your opinion is an unproven area of interest, but very far from fact. I encourage research and discussion about this, but stating this as fact to a "newbie" is misleading.

 

Luis - You will be 100% fine if you just copy the files from one drive to another. if you want to make sure the files are 100% identical you can use an MD5 Checksum. On a Mac here is how you can do this.

 

Open Applications >> Utilities >> Terminal

 

Type -> MD5 followed by the path to a track you want to test. Here are two examples:

 

MacBook-Pro:~ chris$ md5 "/users/chris/downloads/tracks/California Girls 2.wav"

MD5 (/users/chris/downloads/tracks/California Girls 2.wav) = 5e4af86de7079b5173ff70d2327bf054

 

MacBook-Pro:~ chris$ md5 "/users/chris/downloads/tracks/California Girls.wav"

MD5 (/users/chris/downloads/tracks/California Girls.wav) = 5e4af86de7079b5173ff70d2327bf054

 

[sandyk]

Chris

Did you listen to those files that you downloaded?

SandyK

P.S.

At a listening session last Saturday at a friend's place we listened to .wav files played from my USB pen in a laptop (Windows XP) into a modified Benchmark USB DAC via USB and into a Class A preamp and a pair of 100W per channel high quality amplifiers and a biamped pair of Infinity speakers with Raal tweeters (up to 100KHZ) using custom crossover networks, and the results were vastly inferior to those from .wav files burned to a 24K Kodak Gold CD-R from the same USB pen earlier that morning,when played via an Oppo DV981HD SACD/DVD-A player, or a Marantz SA11 SACD player which was considerably better again when they were used as transports with the same Benchmark USB DAC.

Clearly, not all laptops, or PCs,or Macs are created equal when it comes to playing Audio files.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

SandyK - It's not surprising that you hear sonic differences between a Windows XP laptop and traditional disc spinners. The playback mechanisms are vastly different. This has absolutely zero to due with the origin of the wav file.

 

 

 

[sandyk]

Chris

Sometime back you posted the attached.-

Tue, 11/24/2009 - 16:43 — The Computer Au... OK, I'm finally willing to

OK, I'm finally willing to listen to these files. The whole "resolving system" talk got me intrigued. Right now I have a dCS stack, McIntosh MC275, with Verity Fidelio and Focal Diablo speakers. This should be resolving enough for now.

 

Please send the link to the downloads.

 

__________________

 

Chris Connaker

 

Founder

Computer Audiophile

 

 

You later followed up with a post showing that the files had identical checksums, which I made sure they were. You never did follow up the thread with a listening test report, which several members waited days for, before replying. further. This had the effect of ending the thread.

You say "no disrespect", but that is not exactly how that comes across.

Like a good politician, you have now evaded the question that I asked you, which was "Did you listen to those files that you downloaded?"

 

Please cancel my membership of Computer Audiophile.

 

SandyK

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

SandyK - Sorry you feel that way. Challenging a hypothesis based on no objective facts and no objective or subjective way to test over the Internet is a good thing in my opinion. It's not disrespectful when readers from around the world challenge anything I say as long as the conversations are civil.

 

I certainly don't think I ended the thread by not returning to post my opinion. After reading more about what you proposed I concluded there was no way to accurately compare files. You said moving a file caused sonic differences under certain circumstances laid out. Thus, uploading files to an Internet host and downloading them to my local machine(s) would render my listening session vastly different than anyone else's listening sessions by your own admission. Whether I heard differences or not would be of no consequence because I would be listening to "different" sounding files than you.

 

Until proven otherwise I stand by my opinion that two files with the same MD5 checksum cannot possibly sound different just because one file was copied from drive A to drive B, then back to drive A if all else remains equal. I am very open to any technical reason how this could occur but so far there are not even far-out theories as to how this can happen. I'm open minded, but draw the line when every piece of knowledge currently on Earth cannot even attempt to explain your opinion.

 

I don't want to see any CA reader go, but if you must so be it. Thanks for your contributions to the site.

 

 

 

 

[sandyk]

Chris

Whether the Internet altered the files or not is beside the point. The checksums were still identical as you verified.

You did not even do me the courtesy of listening to the 2 uploaded files, the same as you did not do me the courtesy

of at least ackknowledging 2 friendly earlier PMs. One of which gave the download links to 2 comparison 24/96 .wav files.

All the best for the continuing success of CA, and for many more posts from very knowledgeable posters such as Barrows and Peter St.

SandyK

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

"Whether the Internet altered the files or not is beside the point. The checksums were still identical as you verified. You did not even do me the courtesy of listening to the 2 uploaded files ...

 

That is not beside the point. You claimed moving files alters the sound and offered two files for testing. If this was true then I would not have the same files as you even though the checksums were the same. According to you it's possible the moved files could have sonically changed back to the original sound. If they can change one way they can certainly change the opposite way. It would do no good to draw a conclusion based on a flawed testing methodology. A better test is to move my own files in the same pattern you described and listen for differences. This I have done and noticed no differences whatsoever as long as all else was equal. Playing back from different media is a completely different story however.

 

 

 

... the same as you did not do me the courtesy of at least ackknowledging (sic) 2 friendly earlier PMs. One of which gave the download links to 2 comparison 24/96 .wav files."

 

Your PMs were among hundreds of emails I receive each day. I try to respond to as many as possible. When it takes away from researching and writing for the site I have to move on.

 

 

 

[Luis2045]

Thank you Mike. Now I can be sure that creating a second copy of my files just by tranfering them from one hard drive to another one is going to retain the same quality.

 

[Luis2045]

Chris:

Thank you for posting a reply. I can now certaninly rest assure on this fact and carry on with my process of getting a new hard drive to just transfer the files to 1 or 2 new hard drives. I researched the whole internet for a reply like the ones I got from this site, I never found anything like it untill now. I consider myself an audiphile, and I found all about this no more than 6 months ago, so I'm a real "newbie". When I found this site I was hooked, and I will always be. Sorry if by accident I made a memeber of this forum want to leave computer audiophile, I just needed some expertise and I respect every single opinion of any member in here. Finally, let me say thanks for this site and the opportunity for people from all over the world to have access and be part of this audiophile world, and that I appreciate and trust on your judgement and the advice you give.

Luis