Music Storage, New Music, Remote Access, and a Cool Streamer Project

http://vintagemusiccompany.com/index.html

In Minneapolis should be able to repair this radio. That is if you want to retain the tube amp portion.

I am assuming this is a mono amp, not stereo.

You could ask them to put another input option for a smallish streamer. Assuming you have this at home, or office with your music on the NAS, you could put a microRendu in there easily, or the AQ Beetle. If you did not want to try one of the DIY Pi solutions.

1 minute ago, sdolezalek said:

If you think about it, the storage business model is really backwards.  If all of us at CA stored duplicates of our entire music libraries in the cloud, think about how much waste and duplication there would be in terms of storage.  What we really need is a service that verifies what we each have, stores one copy of that on a safe server and then allows any subscriber to "restore" their collection as needed, based upon files previously verified as "owned.'  Who knows, my entire library might be just a tiny subset of Chris' or others here.  

 

Is there any way CA could start something like that as a subscription service?  My guess is that folks like Amazon, google, etc. wouldn't love it because they now all want to start charging us more for storage now that they have us on the hook.

Totally agree with this. I think that this is similar to what Murfie is trying to accomplish. Except that they store your CDs too. Complications start when we have different meta-data in our rips...

3 hours ago, foodfiend said:

Totally agree with this. I think that this is similar to what Murfie is trying to accomplish. Except that they store your CDs too. Complications start when we have different meta-data in our rips...

Maybe we could ask Murfie to provide the service.

It should not be too hard to run a database of titles and who has access to which song.  

As it is merely a backup service we require traffic will be a lot less than an active database like Tidal.

3 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

If you think about it, the storage business model is really backwards.  If all of us at CA stored duplicates of our entire music libraries in the cloud, think about how much waste and duplication there would be in terms of storage.  What we really need is a service that verifies what we each have, stores one copy of that on a safe server and then allows any subscriber to "restore" their collection as needed, based upon files previously verified as "owned.'  Who knows, my entire library might be just a tiny subset of Chris' or others here.  

 

Is there any way CA could start something like that as a subscription service?  My guess is that folks like Amazon, google, etc. wouldn't love it because they now all want to start charging us more for storage now that they have us on the hook.

Really good post IMO.

STORJ will cost money, but by providing storage facilities one can earn money as well.

4 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

If you think about it, the storage business model is really backwards.  If all of us at CA stored duplicates of our entire music libraries in the cloud, think about how much waste and duplication there would be in terms of storage.  What we really need is a service that verifies what we each have, stores one copy of that on a safe server and then allows any subscriber to "restore" their collection as needed, based upon files previously verified as "owned.'  Who knows, my entire library might be just a tiny subset of Chris' or others here.  

 

Is there any way CA could start something like that as a subscription service?  My guess is that folks like Amazon, google, etc. wouldn't love it because they now all want to start charging us more for storage now that they have us on the hook.

I've often thought of this as well. It isn't rocket science to match files and save storage and bandwidth resources. 

With all the brilliant minds in this community, I'm sure someone could figure this out. 

How about ditching the cloud in favor of a <$500 WD My Book Duo 16TB USB3.0 DAS connected to a local PC to backup your NAS over the network?

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I've often thought of this as well. It isn't rocket science to match files and save storage and bandwidth resources. 

 

With all the brilliant minds in this community, I'm sure someone could figure this out. 

When software like Roon builds my library, it is obviously cataloging each file.  Therefore, in theory, it builds a database that could easily be stored offline of what I at any time "owned." That time-stamped file could then be used as a validation for any subsequent recovery needs.  Once a super-user had uploaded his/her originals (you could use software like dbPoweramp to validate checksums to identify the correct file), then each of us would only need to upload those files that were not already in the master catalog.  My guess is that even with the administrative costs involved, you could reduce the cost to a level where if you had 1,000 subscribers, each of us might pay 1/250th of what it would otherwise cost to store a duplicate of our library under currrent systems. 

As you say, we have plenty of folks here smart enough to figure this out.  I, for one, would much prefer a solution like this to the pain it is to stay current on other backup software and methods.  

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I've often thought of this as well. It isn't rocket science to match files and save storage and bandwidth resources. 

 

With all the brilliant minds in this community, I'm sure someone could figure this out. 

Would also save on ripping since once I verify I own a CD I could just download the rip. Could be an interesting project to do in a couple steps. Starting with something simple and then adding the goodies. 

It would still need storage somewhere though so we would need to figure that out. Although it is less storage than just duplicating our local libraries it would still be storage. 

Software development is not cheap but it is also not that expensive either. How much would you be willing to pay for such a service as a user, that is on top of the price of putting up some storage for the community pool? Would you be willing to be a founder and kick in a bit more to get it going? If we can get a bunch of people together it could be a lot less than that new piece of gear you are eyeing. 

16 minutes ago, DaQi said:

Software development is not cheap but it is also not that expensive either. How much would you be willing to pay for such a service as a user, that is on top of the price of putting up some storage for the community pool? Would you be willing to be a founder and kick in a bit more to get it going? If we can get a bunch of people together it could be a lot less than that new piece of gear you are eyeing. 

I think most of us here have at one time signed up for the unlimited storage on Amazon Cloud, so US$60 a year is something most would at least agree with. I am quite sure that a slightly higher amount could be justified if there were more features than just a cloud back-up (which is easily done).

Then again, if someone like Amazon or Backblaze charge US$60/TB/year, we need quite a bit of redundancy to get down to US$60 per member per year. So, if we have a total of 100TB of data as a community, we would need to raise at least US$6000 per annum or 100 users to just cover storage costs. Not impossible, but I am sure there will be trade-offs, like metadata and file formats. For example, if we save all PCM data as FLAC, the AIFF/ALAC camp may not be too happy, and if the data is stored as AIFF, the FLAC camp would be less satisfied.

I wonder if the folks at Roon or Audirvana or JRiver know how much redundancy there is among their heavy users? But even if there were outliers, it would be much cheaper if I only had to backup 10% of my files that were "outliers." 

In theory, Apple was trying to do this, except that they truncated everything down to useless compressed files.  In theory, it might also change my buying habits if someone like NativeDSD, HD Tracks or ProStudioMasters offered to keep track of what I bought and allowed me to redownload it as necessary.  Of course, I'd then be betting that those companies are still around if that event ever occurs.  

I also find it interesting that services like Tidal don't offer this as an upgrade capability: purchase the true hi-res version of stuff you really like and then download it whenever you want.  Would be an interesting upsell from the existing product.  Of course same concerns apply about them still being around when you need them.  

you should check Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage 

Why not simply transcode to MP3, you'll not hear the difference anyway. </troll>

6 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

Once a super-user had uploaded his/her originals (you could use software like dbPoweramp to validate checksums to identify the correct file), then each of us would only need to upload those files that were not already in the master catalog.  My guess is that even with the administrative costs involved, you could reduce the cost to a level where if you had 1,000 subscribers, each of us might pay 1/250th of what it would otherwise cost to store a duplicate of our library under currrent systems. 

As you say, we have plenty of folks here smart enough to figure this out.  I, for one, would much prefer a solution like this to the pain it is to stay current on other backup software and methods.  

Interesting idea, and with the cost of online storage right now as documented by Chris it appears this could be useful.

Note that this would be sensitive to the method by which duplicates are recognised. Audio fingerprinting, which does sometimes produce clashes in different recordings for the same song, might not be a good way. Checksumming the file is another, but then you're at the mercy of CD ripping having produced slightly different files.

And maybe these clashes don't occur often enough to make the economics work? It would be interesting to find out.

On 2017-08-16 at 2:36 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Trying to figure out Crashplan. It appears that a computer with a mapped drive is required to backup a NAS. The site is confusing with Crashplan and Code42 and different but similar options between then etc...

You can use a docker container to host the crasplan service on your NAS.  The desktop client can be configured to connect to it instead by changing a config file.  Did this config for a friend.

https://miketabor.com/run-crashplan-docker-synology-nas/

Lots of good feedback on backups already.  If the fine print eliminates all cloud options then backing up locally to disk is your best option.

With regard to accessing Roon remotely, I went through this exercise a while back.  If you're familiar with JRiver they utilize port forwarding and that combined with DDNS makes it very easy to access my library anywhere.  The JRemote app allows me to do that from my phone, so I can stream via Blutooth in my car or whatever, wherever.  I dug around for the Roon ports, which at one time were available but they changed that.  I posted some inquiries in the Roon forums which were a dead end.  Glad to hear they'll be incorporating it into their core app soon.

The problem with VPN is that if Roon isn't on the same subnet you're out of luck.  Similar port forwarding issue.  I had another experiment with isolating part of my network on a different subnet.  I could find no way to forward the traffic specific to the Core server's IP.

On 16-8-2017 at 9:53 PM, mrvco said:

For off-site backup I use Crashplan (including my digital music library).  The Family Plan is $149.99 / year w/ unlimited storage for up to ten machines.  There is also a single machine plan for $59.99 / year.

 I also just started a month free of crashplan, I mainly chose this because it seems easier to restore data, which seems to come at a premium at backblaze, and the encryption.

so far, it seems to work fine, with very decent upload speeds. Think this will replace amazon drive and Arq for me.

5 minutes ago, John Milton said:

 I also just started a month free of crashplan, I mainly chose this because it seems easier to restore data, which seems to come at a premium at backblaze, and the encryption.

 

so far, it seems to work fine, with very decent upload speeds. Think this will replace amazon drive and Arq for me.

Report back to us once you get to more than a few TBs of data. From experience, Crashplan then throttles the data transfer rate to an excruciatingly slow pace. I signed for a year, and never got to complete my back-up of my Mac Mini with the attached 8 TB HDD, and so I just gave up.

2 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Lots of good feedback on backups already.  If the fine print eliminates all cloud options then backing up locally to disk is your best option.

 

With regard to accessing Roon remotely, I went through this exercise a while back.  If you're familiar with JRiver they utilize port forwarding and that combined with DDNS makes it very easy to access my library anywhere.  The JRemote app allows me to do that from my phone, so I can stream via Blutooth in my car or whatever, wherever.  I dug around for the Roon ports, which at one time were available but they changed that.  I posted some inquiries in the Roon forums which were a dead end.  Glad to hear they'll be incorporating it into their core app soon.

 

The problem with VPN is that if Roon isn't on the same subnet you're out of luck.  Similar port forwarding issue.  I had another experiment with isolating part of my network on a different subnet.  I could find no way to forward the traffic specific to the Core server's IP.

Hi Johnseye - With respect to remote access, JRiver works great for this. I wrote an article about it a while ago (see below). I'm trying to find a solution for the Roon only crowd :~)

I've seen different opinions about Roon working on a different subnet. Last I looked I saw a post from @dannyroonlabs that said different subnets shouldn't matter. The auto-discovery might be different, but we can always add the IP of the core manually.

Anyway, fun stuff.

Hi Chris....

I signed up for the unlimited storage option on Google Drive for my single user G-Suite Business account a couple of years ago and I've been paying $10CAD/month for it. I uploaded my 6TB library via Synology's cloud backup app.

I just double checked my storage options and it definitely says I have unlimited storage, so that's only $120/year that I've been paying.

16 minutes ago, EdmontonCanuck said:

Hi Chris....

 

I signed up for the unlimited storage option on Google Drive for my single user G-Suite Business account a couple of years ago and I've been paying $10CAD/month for it. I uploaded my 6TB library via Synology's cloud backup app.

 

I just double checked my storage options and it definitely says I have unlimited storage, so that's only $120/year that I've been paying.

I wonder if you're grandfathered into the plan. I looked at it yesterday and Google wouldn't enable me to select less than 3 users for the unlimited plan.

I have 7 TB stored on CrashPlan for $5.99 per month.  The only catch is that I don't backup directly from my NAS.  I have CrashPlan running on a Mac and this is set to backup a folder shared from my NAS.  

When I first implemented this a few years ago, there was no way to backup directly from a NAS.  I think that may have changed.  I haven't looked into it as I don't want to have to go through the re-uploading of my music.

I believe CrashPlan also allows one to seed a backup.  Just mail them a drive and they will load it up.

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Hi Johnseye - With respect to remote access, JRiver works great for this. I wrote an article about it a while ago (see below). I'm trying to find a solution for the Roon only crowd :~)

 

I've seen different opinions about Roon working on a different subnet. Last I looked I saw a post from @dannyroonlabs that said different subnets shouldn't matter. The auto-discovery might be different, but we can always add the IP of the core manually.

 

Anyway, fun stuff.

 

 

 

Adding the Core IP doesn't allow the client to find it if it's on another subnet.  I even added the IP to the routing table so the router knew where to direct traffic for that IP and still had trouble.  If you or @dannyroonlabs knows how, or can verify by getting it working I'd be grateful.  And, if you can get it working there should be no reason why it can't work with a VPN tunnel which could allow remote access.

4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I wonder if you're grandfathered into the plan. I looked at it yesterday and Google wouldn't enable me to select less than 3 users for the unlimited plan.

I think google drive's policies vary from country to country. Where I am, I need to have more than 5 users to go for unlimited storage.

13 hours ago, foodfiend said:

Report back to us once you get to more than a few TBs of data. From experience, Crashplan then throttles the data transfer rate to an excruciatingly slow pace. I signed for a year, and never got to complete my back-up of my Mac Mini with the attached 8 TB HDD, and so I just gave up.

The initial upload took quite a bit of time, but once that completed the incremental backups always seem to be done in a timely manner (5M upstream), even on our two MBAs which are usually in sleep mode when not in use.  I believe you have the option to ship them a drive instead of doing the initial backup over the Internet.  Time Machine is still my primary backup method, so I'm not concerned if Crash Plan needs to while the night away uploading data.

I have an 8TB HDD and rent a safe deposit box from my local bank for $75/year.  Once per month or so I retrieve the drive from the box, bring it home and sync any new media, and take it back to the box the next day.

Very low tech but cheap & easy.  I could save the $75 and keep the drive at a friend's house but I always know when the bank is open.