Well it was briefly legal here then they changed it again. Which was odd.
I don’t have a very large collection, maybe 100-200 folders sorted by artist, and all of this was synced with Dropbox at the time. One day I’m browsing thru the less frequently listened music and discovered all the music files were gone.
I started checking other folders and found that much of my collection was missing. The folder structure was still in place, so unless you looked for the actual contents you wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong. But no .mp3 or .flac files - everything was gone.
Mild panic… especially after realizing Dropbox had synced this disaster across all my computers. Fortunately I was able to recover from an old backup, but the moment I realized the online world can disappear instantly is one I won’t forget.
From that time on if I buy music it’s on a CD. They don’t vanish into the netherworld.
Oh, and the reason all the music files disappeared was due to my own stupidity - not sure how or what, but I vaguely remembered a notice from Dropbox that I had deleted a lot of files and they were double-checking… so yeah, only myself to blame.
Bad luck.
It illustrates why sync is not the same as backup.
These sync-based systems catastrophically mislead people.
Once you have an offline backup or three (preferably at leas two separate copies offline) then just stash them away somewhere or get rid. Do not under any circumstances just rely on one backup copy or online synced backups, where deletions (accidental or not) get instantly replicated.
I have at least 1500 CDs - including some recent purchases (in cases where there is a significant price difference with download prices). I cannot remember the last time I actually listened to a CD. Everything is or has been ripped to three locations (External hard drive directly connected to my ‘Roon computer’ and backed up twice - on a NAS and an external hard drive not connected to my network). Therefore I don’t expect I will ever need to access my CDs for backup purposes). I have also been fairly successful in locating electronic copies of the booklets - vital for operas etc - and these can then be easily accessed through Roon - further reducing the need to access the CDs.
I am increasingly listening to streamed music - Qobuz in my case.
I am obsessive when it comes to backing up my music files. I back up to two drives on my home network whenever I add music to my Roon library, plus monthly to a portable drive that I keep at work. I have a friend who is a Roon user and never backs up his music, or even his Roon database, until recently, when I showed him how to do it. A catastrophe waiting to happen.
Well it’s close to 40 years and I have “never” had a drive failure. I never back-up my music. If a drive ever fails I will just reload “some” of my CD’s and re-tag music from Tidal. I am regular on culling music that I am no longer interested in hearing. Unlike many others I am bored with hearing most of the music I are up with and am always looking or new to me artists and albums. If it wasn’t for new music I would be out of this hobby. I can’t think of a time where if I didn’t have access to album X that I just didn’t select something else and never have a second thought. Since Tidal I am down to purchasing at most 2 or 3 discs per year.
If I had a library of ripped CD’s or LP’s, I would definitely back them up. HDD’s and SSD’s do fail. I would also keep the physical media as proof-of-purchase and to prevent copyright violations.
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Yes. I never had a HDD failure either–until I did. I was extremely lucky to have had 2100+ ripped CDs (many not available from streaming services) backed up!
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In my case I have storage boxes full of discs, and Blu Rays. I ripped them maybe 7 years ago? I no longer buy physical CDs, I stream music. I am thinking the same as you, what to do with them? I couldn’t care less about the backup, why? so people are afraid to lose the digital copy stored on HDDs or the Cloud, when we know that in the Cloud only our own mistake would make them disappear, and what if my house floods and then the storage boxes are damaged? Or what if someone with a magnet passes over the boxes and data is destroyed? Or my house burns or whatever million reasons that might make me lose my physical collection… it is the same with HDD or Cloud backup, so no big issues about having them as backups.
I wonder if to keep them or not, just as nostalgia… the very first CD I bought when I earned my first paycheck. The CD a girlfriend gave you, the one you mixed, the one you used on your wedding, the one that this or the one that that…
In my case I think I will trow them away the instant my wife needs more storage space, or the day I get tired of having this useless discs collecting dust, and maybe another human would love to listen to them.
Anyway, difficult choices lie ahead to all of us!
Yes, it’s not a matter of if but when. And raid is not backup. Like the military says, “two is one and one is none.” (Although maintaining a digital music library isn’t, of course, a life or death proposition.)
Just to be clear I am not trying to change anyone’s position on backing up their music.
For the reasons I stated I have absolutely no reason to worry about back-ups.
Totally wrong!
I got rid of my vinyl after the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco. I donated the money for recovery and I wanted to travel light after the “big one”. I regretted it since. I suspect you may regret giving up the silver discs. Young kids are loving cassettes and 8 track tapes if you believe it!
I was living in Oakland when the '89 earthquake struck… I had just bought my first “serious” stereo system.
Bay Bridge World Series! The only stuff I buy are vinyl now. I just purchased a Rega Planar 6 with a Ania Moving Coil and am loving it. Revisiting Santana, Boz Scaggs, Earth Wind and Fire, Steely Dan, Cars, Tower of Power etc.
Would you elaborate?
Yes. Both positive and negative. CD players are really a transport (laser and spin) plus a DAC. Or you can use them as just a transport. Or buy a transport without DAC. Like DACs, the transport will have a significant influence on sound quality. Even if you plug the transport into the same DAC where you’re sending FLAC it will sound different. So, there isn’t really a way to do a true comparison. They will sound different. My networked digital path is far superior to my physical media path at this point but that was not always the case. It took a bit to get the right network box connected to the DAC with the right server software to get better than my CD transport. My FLAC files, across my digital / network transport, sound much better than what I can get from my CD transport. Now, granted, my CD transport is over 10 years old at this point. There are some, new, very highly reviewed transports that might be better than my network path but I’m not investing in physical media anymore. Additionally, I know of 2 companies that may release brand new transports this year. But, network is the way forward for me.
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See for example the entire east coast AWS outage a few years ago.
And from a personal (and funny, now) experience, I worked for a company that had all the servers destroyed (and a lot of data lost) because a distracted electrician working for a third party data center (nowadays everybody calls that Cloud) connected an entirely level to 380V instead of 220V…
And I’m sure that you can find some other examples.
So far I’ve kept all my CD, DVDs and Blu-Rays I’ve moved over to my NAS. Reason being, I thought CDs were “it” when they came out and I was in my 20s. I sold 500+ LPs for enough to buy probably less than 10 CDs. Fast forward another 15-20 years and I was back into vinyl and so disappointed with myself. I remember exactly 1 CD that I sold at a used CD shop and still regret it.