A Digital Audio Drawback - Music Storage Delicacy, Compatibility, and Longevity

    Audio: Listen to this article.

Many of us remember 1GB hard drives, and 4MB modules of RAM for that matter, followed by the explosion of storage capacity for less and less money. Once hard drives got large enough and cheap enough, it was game-on for those of us looking to move our collections of music in lossless quality from thousands of individual discs to a single disk with immediate access. What could possibly go wrong? Life was good. Or so we thought.

Data / Music Storage

In my previous life I designed, configured, and managed, among other things, large storage area networks (SAN), mirroring and synchronizing data around the globe. Digital data storage and its fragility has always been top of mind for me. However, I completely understand that most people have busy lives, other interests, and don’t care to learn about data storage. Just like Post Malone sings in one of his new songs, many people have “A Guy for That.” Whether that guy takes care of everything or that guy is a nephew who answers one’s questions at Christmas time, the bottom line is that most people just want their music accessible quickly when they tap play on a tablet and prefer not to think about storage.

Well, consider this article food for thought in reevaluating how you store your music collection. Two recent items reminded me of the importance of keeping music storage top of mind not only for me, but for the Audiophile Style community. By top of mind in this instance I don’t mean that we should constantly be thinking about it or have a command of it like a professional. I mean we should have a grasp on the concepts, implement a robust music storage strategy, and checkup on it once in a while.

1. Last week a friend contacted me because something wasn’t right with his music storage solution I’d setup for him in 2020. Four years ago I configured two solid state QNAP NAS units in his house. One runs Roon and contains the music files Roon uses for playback. The other contains an automatic backup of the music files. In addition, the backup QNAP uploads the music files to Backblaze monthly. A robust music storage solution, but not infallible.

2. Yesterday, an industry friend sent me an article from Mix Online (link), about an attempt by archiving company Iron Mountain Media and Archive Services, to get the word out about issues with the hard drives the company stores for record labels. As a music lover, this article depressed me, but as someone who understands data storage it didn’t surprise me at all.

According to the article:

• One-fifth of the drives Iron Mountain recently tested were unreadable.
• The music stored on disks at Iron Mountain isn’t just that recorded digitally, but also that which was transferred to digital from deteriorating analog tapes.
• Even when hard drives work, sessions created in Pro Tools or any other app from 25 years ago may not be usable because of a lack of backward compatibility or plugins, apps, or operating systems.
• The need for immersive mixes is also uncovering many disks that aren’t readable.

Delicacy, Compatibility, and Longevity

The one thing that makes me jealous of Michael Fremer is that a vinyl album he purchased as a sixteen year old in 1964 could be placed on the shelf, forgotten about for the last sixty years, placed on a turntable today and still be playable. In fact, if the album was forgotten about for sixty years, its pristine condition will make it even more valuable. On the other hand, I purchased Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten as a sixteen year old in 1991. Does anyone think I’ll be able to spin that Compact Disc in 2051? Not only will CD players be non-existent but the CD has no chance of lasting that long. But, I can hear all the tech nerds saying, what about the ripped version of the album in my library? For the answer to that I refer everyone to the previous paragraph about Iron Mountain. If left on a hard drive and stored away, my ripped version of Ten will be toast.

Digital music storage is delicate, whether it’s on a spinning drive or one of the solid state variants. It also suffers from compatibility issues in the form of drive interfaces (SCSI, IDE, SATA, NVMe, USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, etc…). Both of these issues also play into a lack of longevity for digital formats, whether that be software or hardware.

Fortunately, music loving audiophiles don’t have to suffer the same fate as music labels who ship their masters off to a dark, cold, cavernous storage facility. We can more easily address the issues that may ruin a musical masterpiece for a record label. Here are some ways I’ve addressed digital’s delicacy, compatibility, and longevity issues. If these are a bridge too far for you, just get “a guy for [it].”

Belt and Suspenders:

NAS to NAS to Cloud - As I mentioned above in the system I setup for a friend, this solution is robust. A NAS for storing music files, that’s accessed by Audirvana / JRiver / Roon / JPLAY / MinimServer whenever music is played. A backup NAS that automatically looks at the music NAS for changes, and backs up those changes every day. The backup NAS also backs up its data to a cloud service, such as Backblaze or iDrive, monthly. I select monthly, rather than nightly or weekly, cloud backups for one reason, in case shit hits the fan. By that I mean in case I accidentally delete something or in the event malware locks up my entire NAS for ransom. If the corrupted music files are backup to the cloud before I notice anything is wrong, then I’m SOL. One month gives me plenty of time to discover an issue and restore from the cloud.

Server to NAS to Cloud - This approach is identical to the above approach with the exception of the music files that are accessed for playback being stored on the server, not another NAS. Using one of the excellent music server options from Lumin, Aurender, Innuos, etc… is common and highly recommended. I love those solutions. With music stored on the server, things tend to just work. A NAS then reaches out to the server looking for changes to the music files, and backs up those files to its drive(s) daily. This NAS also backs up its data to a cloud service, such as Backblaze or iDrive, monthly.

NAS to HDD and Cloud - I’ve been using this approach, in addition to others, for years and think it’s great because it’s a bit less expensive than using two NAS units. I store my music on a NAS. Then I run daily automatic backups to locally attached spinning USB drives. In addition, I backup the music files from the NAS to iDrive monthly.

My locally attached HDDs are 12+ terabytes, and formatted as exFAT. This is key because exFAT can be read by Linux, macOS, and Windows. I want maximum compatibility in a disaster. The NAS also sends me an email if something goes wrong with one of the disks or an automatic backup job.

Note: Backups come in two flavors. One it terrible for compatibilty, while the other is perfect. I reccomend never using official backup software / applications that store the backed up files in a unique format or format other than straight up files like the original data. Some day in the future this special format will be incompatible. Just backup the files as files, so you can also look at the backup, see the files as they also exist on the "gold" copy of the data, and even recover a single file by right-clicking, hitting copy, then pasting it wherever you want. 

Be Careful and Do Something

I know many people who use a computer for playing their music, backup to a USB drive once in a while, and once in a blue moon take a backup copy to the office for offsite storage. This works, just as well as it works for engineers in the studio and the labels who then send the music to Iron Mountain for long term storage. It’s also fraught with potential pitfalls that will leave music loving audiophiles devastated.  From delicacy of drives, to compatibility and longevity, this solution is seriously lacking in everything except short term expenditures.

What’s inexpensive now, can cost dearly in the future. The expensive part of losing music isn’t just the music itself, but also the time we’ve all put into our collections. This stuff isn’t all available from streaming services. Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions, Audio Fidelity, Impex, vinyl rips, tape copies, etc… are all cherished on our local drives and no doubt ripped and tagged with OCD-like precision.

More than anything, I hope this article gets members of the Audiophile Style community thinking about their music, its storage, and how best to handle both for the long haul. There are many more ways to approach music storage and backup. Those I mentioned above are good for many, but not for all. There isn’t a silver bullet for this stuff. Do whatever works for you, whether that’s a hybrid of something mentioned here or a repudiation of these options in favor of something else entirely. Whatever you do, do something.

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