Q for the SB/computer savvy

I think manufacturers better start pricing in a decent backup/redundancy facility in their products because the general public generally aren't aware (or ignore) the potential for loss of data due to HD failure.

The system I am getting made up (by Andrew at AudioFi) will have RAID redundancy but I am also prepared to buy a large external drive when HD prices fall further and backup to that (and store the HD off-site).

Data loss is already causing headaches with digital photography - I know of two people who have lost 3+ years of photos due to HD failure.

 

I definitely think as we as a culture move towards greater reliance on digital mediums we will need considerable storage and considerable redundancy.

These days you are far more likely to lose precious photos in digital format to a hard drive failure than lose negatives and prints to a house fire. Any good hard drives vendor offers a 5 year guarantee - they'll replace the hard drive. That's all you can expect of course, but the loss of content can be awful. Imagine losing thousands of paid for downloaded tracks and irreplaceable photos of your kids.

 

It's the same logic as a cassettee caught/jam in a tape player, limited edition CD/LPs being scratched. CD & DVD discs are so cheap nowadays, burn and back it up if you think it's important.

 

I beg to differ. Would all your cassettes or LP's or CD's get ruined in one go? The comparison is a house fire which I think you'll agree is worse regards loss of music collection.

My point is that as devices move away from being for techies and into the consumer device arena they are expected to work without faffing - that's my whole point above.

What;s the point of committing to HD storage only to have to back everything up onto 5" discs. Soon this will seem as weird as
backing your PC data up onto floppy discs. Consumers will expect HD storage to work as expected and wont want to buy an additional Lacie USB Hard Drives to back up their music collection. At least that's my perception anyway.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that nothing is foolproof. You have to compromise for the convenience (HD offers easy excess) you are getting with a HD. If you fear the downloaded tracks you've paid for getting lost, burn it, or if it's too troublesome, then store it online (gmail or yahoo easily offers huge storage space) and the likelihood of both the HD & online failing, will be extremely minimal.

We know all consumer products fail or becomes obsolete at one point. One will be naive to think not.

 

How about these for simplicity Avega Systems.
Wireless UPnP (universal plug n play) 'audiophile' loudspeakers.

Just add a server with TwonkyMedia and you're away.

Slightly OT but strange as it may seem, historians are already worried about the obsolescance of digital formats. Paper/Photographs last for 100's of years but digital formats have a lifetime of 10's of years (if it's a poular one).
There is already information from the 60/70's that can't be read anymore as the readers don't exist now.

 

Obsolescence is another issue entirely, and I agree - failure is to be expected - that's my point - and thus protected against, but I dont think consumers are made aware of this regards storage. I think most non technical people assume hard drives are likely to be reliable.

 

Kind of makes the whole downloading thing a bit pointless; you'd be better buyng the CD and ripping to HD, that way you have always got the original on a format that is unlikey to suffer from failure.

I agree that there may be a consumer backlash if HD's start dying where no redundancy exists, although to be fair in my entire life (including 10 years in IT) I have only personally known 1 single HD to die to an extent whereby the data was seemingly irretrievable, and that was on my brothers PC. That said, I know it happens, maybe I've just been lucky. Partial data loss due to disc errors is more common; perhaps someone should set up a service specifically aimed at salvaging data from multimedia based audio/video systems that suffer from HD errors.....you'd probably make a few pennies and it would be no different from doing the same from any other HD, obviously - just market it as a home multimedia thing rather than an PC thing!

Obsolesence is almost guaranteed in this particular segment of the market I would have thought (standalone HD based digital audio/video), as it still must be regarded as being a fairly new development as far as the masses are concerned, with specs increasing all the time.