The two home problem

[Kal Rubinson]

Two NAS drives that are synched over Internet.

[Kal Rubinson]

8 hours ago, Browniesbane said:

How does one easily maintain a fully synched music library in two different locations aside from uploading everything to the cloud. 

Two NAS drives that are synched over Internet.

1 minute ago, Dan Gravell said:

I'm interested - what is wrong with uploading it to a storage service online, then syncing the two locations to that?

Depends on library size.  Large libraries are too expensive to store online. 

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, Dan Gravell said:

Agree in principle, but there are a lot of "it depends" there... how large is large, file formats etc...

Yes, I agree in principle and it always "depends."  I have looked at cloud options and, so far, they are too expensive (subjective) for my large collection (subjective) with a wide array of formats (subjective).  It is also too slow (subjective) for the initial upload and too slow (subjective) for a full download/restore with my current ethernet connections.  I wish it were otherwise and, some day, it will be.

 

If my remote NAS fails beyond the ability of RAID recovery or needs to be replaced, it goes in the car, back to home and, after repair/replacement, is restored by direct wired connection to the home NAS.  Vice versa, too.

[Kal Rubinson]

38 minutes ago, bluesman said:

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

40 minutes ago, bluesman said:

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.

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

42 minutes ago, bluesman said:

I see no reason to duplicate a large library when it's readily accessible where it lives. 

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

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, bluesman said:

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.

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

1 hour ago, bluesman said:

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.

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

1 hour ago, bluesman said:

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.

Yup.  One in NYC and one in CT.

 

1 hour ago, bluesman said:

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.

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.

[Kal Rubinson]

9 hours ago, bluesman said:

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.

I will look into MCWS but, since the remote NAS is required for security as backup, I sees no reason to ignore it and play via MCWS.

9 hours ago, bluesman said:

And, of course, RAID had followed suit on the mirror - so it was all gone.

Ooof.  There should be a way to prevent that but it is why I do my synching manually.  If I rip or download files at one location, I add them to my local JRMC library and play/edit for metadata.  Later, after confirming that all's well,  I send the files to the other location.  Same for deletions.  Do it local, wait and then do the remote.  No need to tote drives.  

(I also keep a local b/u off line just in case I do something stupid.)