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The two home problem


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I see no reason to duplicate a large library when it's readily accessible where it lives.  I stream my files from our home to wherever we happen to be (as long as there's internet access) with JRiver Media Center. There's a web server built into it that's accessible using an alphanumeric access key unique to each instance.  My main JRMC instance is on my Win10 PC, and I use that access key for my own WAN access.  I also run an instance on a Raspberry Pi so my son can listen to my files wherever he is, using his own access key.  Before I adopted JRiver, I used Foobar2000 for this.  With the foo_upnp plugin, it also works extremely well. It's not quite as simple as JRMC to set up and use, but it's not far behind.

 

I do back up my library on line.  Yes, it took days to upload it all - but the download was fast enough for me the only time I needed to restore.  I use Livedrive (based in London) because they truly offer unlimited storage for one very reasonable price.  They also let you back up unlimited network storage for a reasonable annual add-on charge. Their app monitors whatever directories you select, and it synchs whenever a change is made.  It's been running 24/7/365 for me for over 10 years without a hitch.  They also provide great customer service.  You have to send them a message whenever you're changing hardware, so they can "disconnect" the old and connect the new.  Their response time has been hours at the most.

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2 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I do understand that one can do this but how does this work with multichannel DSD?  Gapless? High bit-rate multichannel PCM?

How large a download was it and how long is fast enough?  

My duplicate library takes the place of the cloud storage but I'd consider a change, if feasible.

I haven’t tried MC, but JRMC lets you choose whether and how to transcode streamed files - so I assume with good reason (but haven’t confirmed) that you can stream in native format any files JRiver will play.

 

Your download speed determines time to restoration.  I restored about a TB of FLACs and high res photo files in about 6 hours with the nominal 50 MBPS download speed we had at the time.

 

If your duplicate library is geographically and electronically separate from the main one, at least one instance is safe from total physical or computer-driven destructive event affecting the other. But you still have to maintain currency manually between the two with every change in content. I did this for a few years, swapping drives between NAS and safe deposit box weekly.  It gets old quickly.

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2 hours ago, firedog said:

That makes a lot of sense, but I'd hesitate to leave my server/router on for such a use if I was away from home for more than a few days. Just don't like the idea of something unattended being left on and running for extended periods of time. 

My NAS, gateways, and multiple computers run 24/7.  Pre-Covid, we went abroad for 2+ weeks at a time at least 3 or 4 times a year without a problem.  Every few years, a power failure shut everything down - but the worst that happened was my inability to listen to my music in JRiver on my phone or tablet while in Sydney.  And I can always listen to my Livedrive backup if my home server goes down - I just can’t use my usual GUI to locate and open files.  But the folders are easy to navigate by name, so this isn’t a big deal either.

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26 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Is this based on DLNA?  If so, there are significant restrictions.


Not bad.  Was that because of a disc failure or some other loss?  

 

Yup.  One in NYC and one in CT.

 

I did that initially.  Now, I just update them incrementally over the Internet as I add new content and/or modified content to either one.

Foobar2000 uses DLNA for web streaming, but I don’t think JRiver does.  It has a DLNA server so it can play to DLNA renderers. But I’m pretty sure that MCWS (Media Center Web Service), which plays to JRMC clients, is not DLNA.

 

The failure was mine.  Somehow, very late at night, I managed to delete an entire partition when I thought I was just clearing a media library of its content. I discovered my error the next day.  And, of course, RAID had followed suit on the mirror - so it was all gone.  I tried every data recovery trick and program I could find short of the very costly services that retrieve content from residual magnetic patterns on the disc.

 

If you can write to your disks from either location, you can play from one machine to the other the same way.  

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