Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Paul & Caroline van der Mey]

It's not very high on current storage but I have a SCSI Hardware raid 
box (Rack mountable - about the size of an XServe Raid I'd expect) for 
sale at an agreeable price!


4 swappable drive carriers hold 68 pin SCSI drives (Seagate Barracuda's 
1x 18 GB = ST318436LW & 3x 9 GB = ST39173W). 4 empty bays still 
available without drive carriers.


You'll want a 68 pin SCSI card to get the most from it.

Alternatively, if you have a 68 pin PCI-SCSI card about to be thrown out 
I'll put it into use myself!


Thanks

Paul van der Mey
0419 201 477

Rod wrote:



On 3/3/05 11:42 AM, "Onno Benschop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

 


Navid Mavaddat wrote:

   


I was wondering if anyone was aware of a way to create a 'virtual
folder' over multiple drives. My itunes folder is in excess of 170GB
(lossless compressed from my CD collection) and soon it will be larger
than the 200GB drive.

I am considering getting a 250GB drive, but I can see this will only
ultimately be an interim measure. If I could span over multiple drives
this would save much hassle. Currently I can't consolidate the
library. I tried relocating 50GB off the drive, but it still wouldn't
let me consolidate it.
 


Without actually having done this, you should be able to create a raid
array from multiple drives, then stick your iTunes folder on the new
raid volume. (And you get redundancy for free :-)

I'm not sure how much you know about how this works, but at a system
level you can combine multiple drives into one logical volume, that
shows up as one place to store stuff. This is what geeks with too much
time on their hands did when they created a raid array on floppy disks
and across several iPods.


Cheers,
   



Disk Utility in OS X has the ability to make a software raid.  As for
hardware, either a card or an Xserve raid box ;-)

Seeya

Rod!



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now OT Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Mark Secker]

Actually...
On 3 Mar 2005, at 12:02pm, Paul Kitchener wrote:


 Rob Findlay wrote:


 I kind of like the idea of 5.6TB of MP3's. Great for parties!


 Parties!
 Try festivals ;)


you could start up your own radio station and never need anyone to man it.


wouldn't be the first wouldn't be the last... In the US  a LOT of 
regional stations have the whole format piped in with stock weather 
("and it will be a beautiful 87 degree Kansas spring day today") pre 
recorded and scheduled in  and "regional news" recorded complete with 
fake regional accents piped through to slot in to the allotted 5 
minute of news headlines time  all of it from their LA or NY offices.
When the 911 incident occurred it took some of the radio syndicates 
several days to work out how override their automatic music/news 
scheduling  system so they could broadcast real "live announcers on 
the spot" old fashioned radio.


an old DJ boss of mine was looking at using this sort of system to 
narrow-cast music in to places  like malls, service stations, banks, 
government service counters etc.
The software would allow for a whole bank of announcements customized 
for each shop so that even though you'd hear the same music in the 
supermarket as in the book shop when ever the intersong promo break 
came on at the first you'd get an announcement about, say, this weeks 
deli specials, and in the second you'd get info about, say, the 
latest Tom Clancy novel.   load it up with a few gig of music and a 
few dozen stock announcements program the schedule and occasionally 
download new announcements and bingo the machine makes your money for 
you 24/7.


--
~
Mark Secker Computer Support Officer
ph#6488 1855 (ECEL) 
University of Western Australia - CRICOS Provider No. 00126G
~
"Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible."
- Miguel de Unamuno
"It takes an idiot to do cool things that's why it's cool"
- Haruhara Haruka (FLCL)

 (sometimes works)

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Matthew Healey]

On 03/03/2005, at 12:06 PM, Rod wrote:


Disk Utility in OS X has the ability to make a software raid.  As for
hardware, either a card or an Xserve raid box ;-)

Seeya

Rod!


As someone who has had to deal with RAID quite a bit over the last 
couple of years, I can offer a few suggestions that have a lot of 
experience.


Software RAID - Great for mirroring, don't trust it for striping.
That said... The wamug server currently has 3 250GB drives striped 
using the built in raid tools. The difference here is that I don't care 
if it gets corrupted because it's just a mirror of a heap of other web 
sites that can be easily rebuilt by running a single script. I would 
not trust if for data that I actually cared about.


PCI Hardware RAID Card - Great if you have the physical space.
You can get cards that have three SATA ports on the which is great for 
creating a RAID 5 volume. These are only good though if you have a G4 
that has a spot to put the drives.


External NAS / SAN device.
Something like this http://www.wiebetech.com/products/rt5.php
Cheaper than an XServe RAID and uses a Firewire interface. Nice and 
reliable and also portable.


Hardware RAID Device - XServe RAID
Simply put, you get what you pay for. These things rock. I use one here 
at work and it is the best thing since sliced bread.


- Matt

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Rod]

On 3/3/05 12:53 PM, "Reg Whitely" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Actually...
> On 3 Mar 2005, at 12:02pm, Paul Kitchener wrote:
> 
>> Rob Findlay wrote:
>> 
>>> I kind of like the idea of 5.6TB of MP3's. Great for parties!
>> 
>> Parties!
>> Try festivals ;)
>> 
> you could start up your own radio station and never need anyone to man
> it.

I wish some of them would.. :-)

Seeya

Rod!

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Paul Kitchener]

Reg Whitely wrote:


Actually...
On 3 Mar 2005, at 12:02pm, Paul Kitchener wrote:


Rob Findlay wrote:


I kind of like the idea of 5.6TB of MP3's. Great for parties!



Parties!
Try festivals ;)


you could start up your own radio station and never need anyone to man it.
Wasn't there an iTunes version that allowed streaming across the web? 
Does the current version?


Reg


I cant abide the radio since I got a Hard Drive >20 GB, on top of that 
IMHO radio has declined in the same time.

Except on the rare occasion I'm playing on RTR or Radio Fremantle ;)

Have Fun
Paul

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Reg Whitely]

Actually...
On 3 Mar 2005, at 12:02pm, Paul Kitchener wrote:


Rob Findlay wrote:


I kind of like the idea of 5.6TB of MP3's. Great for parties!


Parties!
Try festivals ;)

you could start up your own radio station and never need anyone to man 
it.
Wasn't there an iTunes version that allowed streaming across the web? 
Does the current version?


Reg

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Shay Telfer]

Rob Findlay wrote:


I kind of like the idea of 5.6TB of MP3's. Great for parties!


Parties!
Try festivals ;)


I think I once estimated 34Tb to be sufficient storage to allow you 
to have enough music that you could listen to each track once in your 
life (assuming you don't listen to it while you're asleep, or replay 
your favourites).


Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay  Telfer 
 Perth, Western Australia   Technomancer  Join Team Sungroper in the
 Opinions for hire  [POQ] 2005 World Solar Challenge
 http://public.xdi.org/=Shayfnord 

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Rod]

On 3/3/05 11:42 AM, "Onno Benschop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Navid Mavaddat wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I was wondering if anyone was aware of a way to create a 'virtual
>> folder' over multiple drives. My itunes folder is in excess of 170GB
>> (lossless compressed from my CD collection) and soon it will be larger
>> than the 200GB drive.
>> 
>> I am considering getting a 250GB drive, but I can see this will only
>> ultimately be an interim measure. If I could span over multiple drives
>> this would save much hassle. Currently I can't consolidate the
>> library. I tried relocating 50GB off the drive, but it still wouldn't
>> let me consolidate it.
> 
> 
> Without actually having done this, you should be able to create a raid
> array from multiple drives, then stick your iTunes folder on the new
> raid volume. (And you get redundancy for free :-)
> 
> I'm not sure how much you know about how this works, but at a system
> level you can combine multiple drives into one logical volume, that
> shows up as one place to store stuff. This is what geeks with too much
> time on their hands did when they created a raid array on floppy disks
> and across several iPods.
> 
> 
> Cheers,

Disk Utility in OS X has the ability to make a software raid.  As for
hardware, either a card or an Xserve raid box ;-)

Seeya

Rod!

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Paul Kitchener]

Rob Findlay wrote:


I kind of like the idea of 5.6TB of MP3's. Great for parties!


Parties!
Try festivals ;)


Have fun
Paul

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Paul Kitchener]

Rod wrote:




On 3/3/05 11:38 AM, "Neil Houghton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:




 


2) From memory if you "Add to library" (as opposed to say importing a CD)
then the path to the music is added but the actual music files are not moved
to the iTunes music folder (unless you have "copy files to iTunes Music
folder when adding to library" checkbox ticked in preferences)
So:
i)   Move selected artist folders to your new location
   (delete any copies from old location)
ii)  Delete the artist(s) from your iTunes library
iii) Add the artists to your library (navigating to the new location)
Note: Do NOT at a later date "Consolidate library" as I think that will then
move the files (back) to the iTunes music folder

I have just tried 2) running iTunes on my iMac and adding some music located
on my powerbook and it seems to work fine over the ethernet so I can't see
why it wouldn't work for a firewire drive.

Disclaimer Not necessarily the most recent software - I'm running iTunes
4.01 under OSX 10.2.8 on the iMac

HTH

Neil



Neil is right.  When the drive is removed, the songs just come up greyed
out.  You just have to make sure that iTunes does not copy the songs, just
provides a link to them.

(Dump the raid idea - how stupid ;-) )



Dont knock RAID.

I thought of suggesting it earlier but baulked fearing recriminations.

As a long term solution it will save much time and effort while 
providing benefits elsewhere as well.
Going a step further, if your Mac has PCI slots then adding a good Hard 
Drive Controller will cap off a fast(er) Mac with LOADS of fast storage!


What's worth having that comes easily and through work-arounds?
I'd rather be fiddling with the genres, album names, ratings etc than be 
fooling around with the directories.


If you are a big horder get a big larder!


Cheers
Paul

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Rob Findlay]

(Dump the raid idea - how stupid ;-) )

Seeya

Rod!





I don't know. What about an X-Serve RAID? I kind of like the idea of 
5.6TB of MP3's on 14 hot swappable drives. Imagine how long it would 
take on Random to repeat a track. Great for parties!


Rob

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Rod]

On 3/3/05 11:38 AM, "Neil Houghton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:




 
> 2) From memory if you "Add to library" (as opposed to say importing a CD)
> then the path to the music is added but the actual music files are not moved
> to the iTunes music folder (unless you have "copy files to iTunes Music
> folder when adding to library" checkbox ticked in preferences)
> So:
> i)   Move selected artist folders to your new location
> (delete any copies from old location)
> ii)  Delete the artist(s) from your iTunes library
> iii) Add the artists to your library (navigating to the new location)
> Note: Do NOT at a later date "Consolidate library" as I think that will then
> move the files (back) to the iTunes music folder
> 
> I have just tried 2) running iTunes on my iMac and adding some music located
> on my powerbook and it seems to work fine over the ethernet so I can't see
> why it wouldn't work for a firewire drive.
> 
> Disclaimer Not necessarily the most recent software - I'm running iTunes
> 4.01 under OSX 10.2.8 on the iMac
> 
> HTH
> 
> Neil

Neil is right.  When the drive is removed, the songs just come up greyed
out.  You just have to make sure that iTunes does not copy the songs, just
provides a link to them.

(Dump the raid idea - how stupid ;-) )

Seeya

Rod!

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Onno Benschop]

Navid Mavaddat wrote:



I was wondering if anyone was aware of a way to create a 'virtual 
folder' over multiple drives. My itunes folder is in excess of 170GB 
(lossless compressed from my CD collection) and soon it will be larger 
than the 200GB drive.


I am considering getting a 250GB drive, but I can see this will only 
ultimately be an interim measure. If I could span over multiple drives 
this would save much hassle. Currently I can't consolidate the 
library. I tried relocating 50GB off the drive, but it still wouldn't 
let me consolidate it.



Without actually having done this, you should be able to create a raid 
array from multiple drives, then stick your iTunes folder on the new 
raid volume. (And you get redundancy for free :-)


I'm not sure how much you know about how this works, but at a system 
level you can combine multiple drives into one logical volume, that 
shows up as one place to store stuff. This is what geeks with too much 
time on their hands did when they created a raid array on floppy disks 
and across several iPods.



Cheers,

--
Onno Benschop

Connected via Optus B3 at S34°32'27" - E146°24'35" (Leeton, NSW)
--
()/)/)()..ASCII for Onno..
|>>?..EBCDIC for Onno..
--- -. -. ---   ..Morse for Onno..

Proudly supported by Skipper Trucks, Highway1, Concept AV, Sony Central, Dalcon
ITmaze   -   ABN: 56 178 057 063   -  ph: 04 1219    -   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Neil Houghton]

on 03/03/05 10:49, Navid Mavaddat at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> 
> I was wondering if anyone was aware of a way to create a 'virtual
> folder' over multiple drives. My itunes folder is in excess of 170GB
> (lossless compressed from my CD collection) and soon it will be larger
> than the 200GB drive.
> 
> I am considering getting a 250GB drive, but I can see this will only
> ultimately be an interim measure. If I could span over multiple drives
> this would save much hassle. Currently I can't consolidate the library.
> I tried relocating 50GB off the drive, but it still wouldn't let me
> consolidate it.
> 
> -navid
> 
>
Hi

Just a couple of thoughts - no idea if they will actually work ;)

1)  The itunes library is set up with tracks inside album folders inside
artist folders - so if you have a lot of music by a given artist those
folders can get quite large. So try moving some artist folders to a new
location on one of your other discs then just put an alias of each moved
artist folder back in the main library.

2) From memory if you "Add to library" (as opposed to say importing a CD)
then the path to the music is added but the actual music files are not moved
to the iTunes music folder (unless you have "copy files to iTunes Music
folder when adding to library" checkbox ticked in preferences)
So:
i)   Move selected artist folders to your new location
(delete any copies from old location)
ii)  Delete the artist(s) from your iTunes library
iii) Add the artists to your library (navigating to the new location)
Note: Do NOT at a later date "Consolidate library" as I think that will then
move the files (back) to the iTunes music folder

I have just tried 2) running iTunes on my iMac and adding some music located
on my powerbook and it seems to work fine over the ethernet so I can't see
why it wouldn't work for a firewire drive.

Disclaimer Not necessarily the most recent software - I'm running iTunes
4.01 under OSX 10.2.8 on the iMac

HTH

Neil
-- 
Neil R. Houghton
Albany, Western Australia
Tel: +61 8 9841 6063
Fax: +61 8 9841 6137
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Shay Telfer]

I was wondering if anyone was aware of a way to create a 'virtual 
folder' over multiple drives. My itunes folder is in excess of 170GB 
(lossless compressed from my CD collection) and soon it will be 
larger than the 200GB drive.


I am considering getting a 250GB drive, but I can see this will only 
ultimately be an interim measure. If I could span over multiple 
drives this would save much hassle. Currently I can't consolidate 
the library. I tried relocating 50GB off the drive, but it still 
wouldn't let me consolidate it.


-navid


Did you try moving some folders to the other drive from the iTunes 
library and replacing those folders with aliases to the folders on 
the other drive? I think that used to work...


Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay  Telfer 
 Perth, Western Australia   Technomancer  Join Team Sungroper in the
 Opinions for hire  [POQ] 2005 World Solar Challenge
 http://public.xdi.org/=Shayfnord 

Re: organised itunes over multiple drives?

[Rod]

On 3/3/05 10:49 AM, "Navid Mavaddat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> I was wondering if anyone was aware of a way to create a 'virtual
> folder' over multiple drives. My itunes folder is in excess of 170GB
> (lossless compressed from my CD collection) and soon it will be larger
> than the 200GB drive.
> 
> I am considering getting a 250GB drive, but I can see this will only
> ultimately be an interim measure. If I could span over multiple drives
> this would save much hassle. Currently I can't consolidate the library.
> I tried relocating 50GB off the drive, but it still wouldn't let me
> consolidate it.
> 
> -navid
>

Maybe a striped RAID setup might be the way to go?  I don't think iTunes
will run across multiple drives.

Seeya

Rod!