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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: STORAGE OF MY MUSIC FILES

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Hello All,

I am just beginning to get into Djing and would like to know the best way to store my music files. On my Laptop can get very full as i just got it wiped clean to begin this inside hobby. I want to know the best way I can store my music files and still get to them with ease. I hear external hard rives work great but at the same time. what if a different song is on one of the other hard rives that is not plugged in and the song that is playing is on the current hard drive. Do i switch out the hard drives and if I do that does that mess up the playback from the current song on the deck?
 
Posted Fri 04 Jul 14 @ 4:25 pm
Different people will have different ideas of the "best way".

I prefer to use internal storage. It's just more convenient not to have to carry a separate device that relies on a cable and often a separate power supply.

The drive itself, the cable or the PSU could get damaged or lost. If it's inside the computer, it's safer and tidier (IMO).

Unless you've got a ridiculously huge quantity of music, hard drives can easily hold entire DJ collections - far more music than a typical consumer would have.
 
I keep a back up on an external 1/2 TB drive with is only 1/5 full with 10000 tracks. but it stays at home, I have 2 machines one with more my entire collection on and another machine that doesn't have much space, so I use a 32 GB MicroSD card to temporally import tracks.

As for switching harddrives on the fly, I think it shouldn't matter as once VDJ loads a track it is held in memory (except long tracks)
 
I think externals are the way to go. You need at least 2 or 3 for backups. The are light, cheap, can fit in your pocket, many are USB powered and even if the cord get damaged, that is an easy replacement.

Even if you want to just have your music on your pc/mac only - you should have backup of you music on at least (2)externals.

There is no right or wrong way - just personal preference.
 
Thank you all for your replies. If anything use Externals for a backup. sounds good. any good Music Pool websites? or is that still Personal Pref? if so whats a nice easy for the pockets, as well as well rounded in genres especially the popular. (HipHop, R&B, EDM)
 
I always use an external for music/video/karaoke storage. Been DJing 37 years, 12 years professionally, my collection is growing every week with new music and locating back catalogue music. My internal HD is not big enough to store everything. Every 2-3 years I seem to be having to get a bigger HD.

My external drives;
Firelight USB 80gb - still going strong and now used weekly for my accounts backup.
Freecom USB 160gb - now stores my karaoke collection (which I never use, haven't done Karaoke for about 10 years)
Maxtor OneTouch 500gb mains powered - Used for all my home video and music projects because of the high spin speed (7,200rpm) and the mains power. Always prefer USB powered drives for gigging due to less wires to contend with. It also stores a backup of my mp3 database.
Seagate USB 500gb - now my MBP Time Machine (backup)
Seagate USB 1tb - video database backup and carried to all my gigs
WD Passport Ultra USB 2tb - current gigging HD containing my databases consisting of 8,000+ videos and 25,000+ mp3s

As you can see, as a working DJ storage space needs to grow. Couldn't imagine the hassle of having to keep upgrading internal storage. Prices keep dropping, for instance my WD Passport 2tb was a little cheaper than the Seagate 1tb cost 2 years ago.

Everybody's experience will be different, this is how I prefer to store my music.
Cheers
Les
 
If money isn't an issue and you want your files to be safer during travel a SSD (solid state drive) drive is the way to go no moving parts to get banged around on the road.
you could put that drive inside a laptop or in an external enclosure pretty much your choice on that.
 
Smiley1017 wrote :
Thank you all for your replies. If anything use Externals for a backup. sounds good. any good Music Pool websites? or is that still Personal Pref? if so whats a nice easy for the pockets, as well as well rounded in genres especially the popular. (HipHop, R&B, EDM)



i keep my music on my internal hard drive (but) keep an back up of my music on an External Western Digital 3.0 Hard drive. (Just In Case) also for $45 a month you get all this = http://www.promoonly.com/products/#po_7 its what ive been using for years
 
Smiley1017 wrote :
Thank you all for your replies. If anything use Externals for a backup. sounds good. any good Music Pool websites? or is that still Personal Pref? if so whats a nice easy for the pockets, as well as well rounded in genres especially the popular. (HipHop, R&B, EDM)



or for $50 a month you get the works = http://www.promoonly.com/products/#po_5
 
 
Do you also have a desktop, if so drop a 1tb drive and your back up will be on your desktop.
 
1TB laptop drives are cheap (well under $70 for non-hybrid drives and about $100 for hybrids.

I have a 1TB hybrid in my Asus laptop and launched VDJ fast as any SSD would.

I have my songs on an external but that was based on the size of the drive in one of my older laptops when I started with Mixmeister Express and then moved to VDJ.

Two laptops later and my current laptop came with 500GB, but slow 5400rpm drive. So I recently upgraded to 1TB hybrid. launched VDJ (and other programs) as fast as any SSD does.

All backups are done by my Windows Home Server 2011 machine, including all externals. But I am going to make some major changes around here as thin clients have finally matured enough to consider them for some of the lighter duty work around here (media serving and media playback) and reduce current draw tremendously.

So anything more than a TB (expect for the laptop until 512GB SSD's drop to $100) will be on the server and the server will be backed up locally (copy #2) and finally in the cloud (copy #3).
 
I have a lot of music videos that so here is my setup.
I store all of my music on external drive.


Laptop:
128 GB Solid State Hard Drive
750 GB Hard Drive.

External:
3 TB Hard Drive on USB 3.0
3 TB Hard Drive (Backup)
 


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