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  • The Computer Audiophile
    The Computer Audiophile

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

    Hey hey hey CA, this week I had plans to publish a completely different article, but sometimes Spacely Sprockets throws a wrench into Cogswell Cogs business plan. In other words, Schiit happens. 

     

    Anyway, I have a pressing storage issue that requires some input from the CA Community. I found some new music, of which I can't get enough. I'm working on a remote access article to help people trying to access Roon remotely. And, I have a cool streamer project I'd like to start, but want some input from the Community on as well. 

     

     


    Music Storage

     

     

    Let's start with the music storage issue. As discussed in the forum a little while back, Amazon is discontinuing it's $60 per year unlimited Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan. My current "contract" expired August 25th. This is a real pain for me because I have 14.8 terabytes stored on a Synology NAS, that is automatically backed up to Amazon Cloud Drive. When I add new music to my NAS, it is copied to Amazon without me having to touch anything or kick off a process. I guess when something is too good to be true, it is too good to be true. 

     

    Amazon's new storage plans range from $11.99 for 100GB to $1799.70 for 30TB of space. Given my need for 14.8TB, I'd need to spend $1199.80 per year for the 20TB plan. I'm just not willing to rent disk space for that much money.

     

    I've started researching new solutions but haven't found a 1 to 1 replacement of Amazon Cloud Drive. A couple features that I really like about Amazon Cloud Drive are 1) My Synology NAS has built in support for auto-backup directly to the drive, and 2) The interface and ease of sharing content stored on Amazon Cloud Drive (A good friend lost all his music and I admit to allowing him to download a limited amount of my content to replace the exact content he already purchased).

     

    Searching for a replacement, I checked a couple well known companies, but found the pricing way too high and the fine print annoying. For example, Dropbox claims unlimited storage for its Advanced level plan at $20 per month per user. That would be $240 per year for my nearly 15TB of storage. However, reading the fine print, one will find there's a three user minimum. This elevates the price to $720 per year.

     

    Google also says its G Suite customers can upgrade to a business plan for unlimited storage. The fine print says, if there are four or fewer users, 1Tb is the maximum amount of storage per user. Five users at $10 per month is $50 /month or $600 /year. If this is truly unlimited, it's cheaper than Dropbox, but still 10x the cost of Amazon Cloud Drive. Strangely, when I look at the cost of just adding more storage to my Google account, the cost is $200 per month for 20TB. There's something amiss here. I can get unlimited storage for $600 /year or 20TB for $2,400 /year.

     

    Backblaze is another cloud storage company I am investigating for my music backup. The cost of its B2 Cloud plan is $0.005 per GB per month. This would be $75 /month or $900 /year for my 15TB of backed up NAS. 

     

    Perhaps the Amazon Cloud Drive solution (unlimited for $60 per year) was a unicorn that will never be seen again. I need a solution to my issue, but haven't found one that excites me for a reasonable price. 

     

    I'd love of the CA Community to let me know what they are using or to offer suggestions. I'll continue investigating and write up an article about the final selection (hopefully soon).

     

     

     

    amazon-pricing.png my-amazon.png

     

     

     

     

     

     

    New Music

     


    BSR_EP_CoverArt_hi.jpgOn August 10, 2017 I read the latest blog from Bob Lefsetz, raving about the band Greta Van Fleet. I don't usually check out Bob's music recommendations, but this one was different. He said the band sounded like Led Zeppelin. 

     


    "It’s a Led Zeppelin rip-off.

     

    But didn’t Led Zeppelin rip off Willie Dixon and the rest of the bluesmeisters?

     

    If you lived through that era, you will instantly hear mid-period Zeppelin, complete with Robert Plant screams. Then you remember that was 45 years ago! About the same distance, if not longer, that Zeppelin was removed from the classic delta blues artists.

     

    It starts off as homage. Then you take off from there. Think about all the covers on the initial Beatle albums!"

     

     


    After reading Bob's entire blog, I immediately opened Tidal and gave Greta Van Fleet a listen. Then another listen, and another. The band sounds very much like Led Zeppelin, one of my all time favorites. I couldn't stop listening to GVF. I'm glad I actually read Bob's blog before hearing about this band. I could have easily written them off as a Zeppelin imitation band. However, Bob is correct in that Zeppelin copied all the blues masters and that was 45 years ago. All artists are influenced by previous generations of music. This band is no different. 

     

    GFV is an American band from Michigan, formed in 2012. The band hasn't released much in this time, but it's January , 2017 EP titled Black Smoke Rising is what should have everybody listening / talking. I've cranked it up on my main system, my headphone system, and my car system. It's great rock and roll that deserves to be cranked up. 

     

    I highly recommend reading Bob's blog first, then giving the band a listen. it will set your frame of mind and get you excited for a little rock and roll.


    Bob Lefsetz - Greta Van Fleet

     

    Greta Van Fleet - Black Smoke Rising - YouTube | Spotify | Tidal

     

     


     

     


    Remote Access

     


    I've been working off and on trying to gain access to Roon while I'm out of the house. Until Roon on the go is released, we will have to find such a temporary solution.  I know it's possible to do this, but I  want to find an elegant solution that I can recommend to everyone and everyone can either buy or setup without too much trouble.

     

    Launching Roon remote from a mobile device without a WiFi connection, won't work. Roon presents an error message about requiring WiFi. Thus, VPN alone won't due the trick. Whatever device is used, will have to be on a WiFi network. Once this is established, a VPN seems like the next logical step.

     

    There are countless VPN solutions that enable one to access a home network (where the Roon core resides). I've used a couple of them and have been testing several others. So far the PiVPN based on a Raspberry Pi is really nice, but it's another device to put on the network and for which a firewall rule is needed. I'm testing out two different wired routers that have built-in VPN, enabling people to configure this VPN and connect remotely without the need for more devices. I believe both the PiVPN and a router based solution will be good options. 

     

    Feel free to offer recommendations, while I continue my testing. I'll publish an article fairly soon, once I am satisfied with the results. 

     

     

     

     

    Cool Streamer Project

     


    The other day I found a cool RCA Victor AM radio in my basement. This thing has several tubes and even built-in presets for local radio stations. It's built like a tank inside and made of cool wood on the outside. Good luck buying something new like this today. 

     

    My idea is to turn this into a desktop all-in-one streamer, like the Naim Mu-so or Klipsch The Three. I'm not sure what it will take, but I'm starting the investigation today. I'm guessing a Raspberry Pi could be used with something from HiFi Berry, but I have no clue about the other pieces such as if I can still use the tubes, amplifier, and speaker. This project isn't that big, but it's out of my comfort zone as soon as I get beyond the digital streaming part.

     

    I'd love all the input I can get from the CA Community on this project. 

     

    P.S. If this one goes well, I have an old Bendix console radio / record player that I'd love to turn into a great stereo.

     

     

     

    IMG_20170816_112519.jpg IMG_20170816_112613.jpg IMG_20170816_112622.jpg IMG_20170816_112646.jpg




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    3 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

    How long will they store it for $550?

    Forever!! It just gets copied from the server that you ship back to them onto a BackBlaze B2 server and then you can continue to add new syncs and updates to via online Cloud backup as you would do normally and you also will have online cloud access to all of those files and can also select to share them, etc. 

    Another nice thing about the BackBlaze B2 is that if you need to restore your files or drives (in your NAS for a rebuild) or to a failed drive, etc. They will ship you external hard drives with your backup data on them for you to use for restore / rebuild and if you ship them back in 30 days the cost just gets credited back to your credit card (I think they charge like $179 per 4TB drive but if you ship the drive back they credit you back, so realty it's free minus shipping costs). 

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    Did you try hubic ? From ovh ? 

     

    I don't Know the price in us, in Europe it'à Big bargain

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    11 hours ago, jppierme said:

    Did you try hubic ? From ovh ? 

     

    I don't Know the price in us, in Europe it'à Big bargain

    @jppierme As far as I know, hubic is only available in Europe. :( I wonder what happens if you need more than 10TB though...

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    On 24.8.2017 at 10:08 PM, agladstone said:

    we need to create a CA "NAS" Buddy program!! 

    Wheras (I've been thinking about this concept for a few days now) you "Buddy up" with another CA NAS user and each of you have a backup of your NAS going to the other Buddy's NAS! 

    Of course this would require that each of the "Buddies" has the ability to store the backup of the others, so it would probably require that each person had an 8 or 9 bay NAS and was only using 4 bays or so for their own purposes. 

    This would work and the "Buddy's" could pay for (ship to the other buddy via amazon, etc) the Hard Drives used for their off-site backup, but really if each person just bought their own extra drives and or extension attachments, it's exactly the same difference anyhow?? 

    Any thoughts on this idea?? 

     

    Jottacloud offers this ?

     

    https://support.jottacloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/202224423-How-do-I-share-a-folder-

     

    No need of sending HD's or NAS in post. 

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    No notification from Amazon UK that they are stopping their unlimited storage plan. Should I be concerned?

    Screen Shot 2017-09-21 at 14.18.43.png

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    On 8/26/2017 at 5:23 PM, agladstone said:

    Thanks for the information. 

    Its odd, they offer a custom plan option, if I select 10TB of total storage and 1TB of daily usage allowed the price is $840 per yr or 85/ mo   

    However their unlimited plan is only 9.99 / mo or 99.00/ yr. 

    I wonder if this means what they call "unlimited", really has some un-written limits?  Otherwise, why would a custom plan with 1TB upload and download per day and 10TB of total allowed storage cost 8 times more than what they call the "unlimited" plan?? 

     

    From my reading of their plans, only the custom plan allows media libraries, or NAS, backup. The personal, and personal unlimited, specifically don’t allow NAS backup or media library storage. You could theoretically stream your files from the custom plan, as long as your bandwidth allows.

     

    For  backup purposes only, the unlimited plan for $99/yr looks the best. I would consider  it for backing up my sub-terabyte library to the site, and get it to sync my library across my computers. (NAS, audio PC, office computer and laptop)

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