Solid/cheap-ish storage solution for lossless files - suggestions?

[Nubben]

I'm really confused on how to best store/safeguard my lossless music collection.

I use Apple Lossless and iTunes to manage my lossless library, but have yet to come up with an affordable solution to store the files. (BTW, the lossless files are converted to AAC's which I use for the iPod.)

I have looked in to hard drives - I need a 2TB drive set up as RAID 1 (mirrored), but these are here in the UK expensive (£500 and upwards).

Second alternative is to burn the files to DVD-R's and make two copies per archived disc (one for off-site).

However, let's say I want to amend some details on a song/album (added lyrics or amended a composer or better hi-rez album art). I would then have to change this information in 3 places: first the AAC, then the ALAC's on each of the discs! Furthermore, I would have to re-burn each disc from scratch having changed the tag info. It would've been great if I could load a DVD-RW (note the RW) in iTunes (showing up as a disc) and simply hit Get Info; amend the details and save it and the file on the disc would automatically be "re-burnt".

On the other hand, if I used a HDD I would simply chnage it there and use iTunes back-up feature and back up files add or changed since the last back up. Much simpler. But, more expensive.

Does anyone have a good solution to store lossless files?

I don't want to start burning a lot of DVD's and then jump to a different back-up solution.

Nubben

[bobb-mini]

Are u even serious archiving 2TB on DVD-R's? Do u have time to burn (punt intended) to sit by the burner? BlueRay still too expensive.

It's been awhile for me, but I would investigate if TAPE is viable.

[kornchild2002]

Well, DVDs would be the cheapest solution. I am not sure about prices in the UK but in the US, you can purchase a 100 pack of DVDs for $20 or so and a DVD burner for $30. That means that you can spend $50 and get 470GB worth of storage. You would need to purchase 5-100 packs of DVDs though. Keep in mind that these are single-layer DVDs, dual-layer DVDs would be too expensive. That is about the only affordable optical media that you can use. Other formats like Blu-ray and HD-DVD are way too expensive. It would easily cost you over $500 (keep in mind that all currency is based on U.S. dollars) for the Blu-ray burner itself and then another $20 just for a 25GB blank disc.

I suggest that you try importing a USB hard drive from the U.S. though. I have seen 2TB models go for $200-$300 which is not that expensive at all. You can either import a hard drive or go with blank DVDs. Just make sure that all of your track ID information is correct before burning the DVDs. It would suck if you started to add information after burning as you would have to re-burn all the files over again.

[Nubben]

Many thanks for your replies!

Nubben