Jeremy's fdisk disaster has me stressing again over the lack of an archive option in current revs of the Empeg software.

I would like to cobble a temporary solution myself, so that I could restore my tracks and playlists to my Empeg or a replacement model should anything untoward happen. I will need some help from the community, however, because I am a bit Linux-impaired.

My first guess would be that the right approach is to get PPP running over USB, do a network mount of the Empeg partitions, and tar them onto my machine. But I'm not certain that's even possible right now, or if there is a better solution.

Thanks for any assistance.

Corby
SN#320, 6-Gig Blue

My DIY archive solution is very simple:

The Empeg is my archive. My computer is where I keep the originals. I organize the files on my computer's hard disk into subdirectory structures that are the same as the playlists on the Empeg.

That way, if the Empeg's drive ever goes bad, I can just reload all the files. The worst thing I have to do is to type in new playlist names, but those are not complicated- just artist/album for the most part. It would take about ten minutes. I'd just follow the subdirectory structure that already exists on my computer's hard drive.

I have three other playlists besides artist/album: Low Key, High Energy, and Test Audio. And since I'm always changing the contents of these playlists, I'd have no problem re-building them from scratch.

Why exactly would you need the Empeg to back up all of this stuff? Are your playlists significantly different from the file structure on your hard disk, and why? Did you load the Empeg and then delete your originals?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

More detail than you are probably interested in:

I got my Empeg a month before I got my car, and spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to set it up the way I like it. My wife and I had a lot of fun experimenting, while using the Empeg as our home stereo component. (BTW, Tony, you are the only person I see on this board who talks much about using Empeg at home. I think Empeg is quite underrated as a home stereo component; I have absolutely no use for my CD changers anymore)

So here's how my hierarchy looks. At the top level, we split into my music and my wife's music. As I have mentioned before, we have very divergent tastes, and we really want to avoid cluttering each other's stuff.

Under Corby, I have three options at the next level: Albums, Singles, and Mixes.

Under Albums, I put the subset of my music where I like to listen to the entire Album from beginning to end. Or, when I buy a brand new album, I will initially store it here until I can listen through and decide which tracks I like and want to keep on the Empeg. I sort by artist, then album name, so I can navigate Queensryche --> Operation: Mindcrime or Beastie Boys --> Hello Nasty to listen straight through the respective Album.

Under Singles (an "Always Shuffle" Playlist), I put all of my tracks that were not copied in the context of an Album. I also put links to specific Album tracks that play well as singles. For example, I ripped my beloved Roger Waters Amused to Death CD into the Albums hierarchy because it plays well straight through. Most tracks on the album don't play well in a singles mix, but some (e.g. What God Wants, Part I) do, so I place a link to these tracks in the Singles hierarchy.

For artists that I have quite a few singles (such as my extensive Prince collection), I group those singles in their own playlist under the Singles collection. Why do that when Empeg already offers a Search By Artist feature? Because this is the only way I can assign PINs to a specific artist, and it makes it easier to navigate hundreds of singles in Emplode.

Under Mixes, I have nothing but collections of links to tracks that already appear in my Albums and Singles playlists. So, there is a large mix that contains some of my singles and some of my wife's singles (split 50/50) that we can shuffle and listen to without causing pain in our marriage. I have mixes for different moods and genres of music, and I have a lot of mixes for specific friends that ride with me. I like my guests to enjoy the Empeg as much as I do, so I pick out tracks that I know they like for their own mix.

The point of all this is that I've invested quite a bit of effort until now in creating some very personalized playlists, and I have now spent $128 on an extra hard drive because it is worth more than $128 to me not to go through the trouble of reripping the CDs and recreating the playlists. (I would have to rerip my CDs because before I bought the additional hard drive we simply did not have enough storage to keep digital copies of all our music. I don't actually use my computer to sit around and listen to MP3's -- that is what my Empeg is for)

In the interests of full disclosure, I do have some MP3 tracks on my Empeg for music that I do not own. But those tracks are the ones that I have the least need to archive; I already do keep those on my computer hard drive since I don't own the original media. And I'm not going to feel terribly sorry for myself if I lose that data anyway. My most urgent need for the archival capability is not to lose my playlist information, and to avoid laborious reripping.

Sorry to spam you with this novel, but there's no real short answer to your question. Right now, the software is going through several iterations of beta and we don't have any historical data on the longevity of the hardware. So, I would love to figure out some procedure for tarring everything up once a month or so, and sticking it snugly away on my new hard drive.

Corby
SN#320, 6-Gig Blue

Interesting. It sounds like you've put a lot of effort into those playlists. I hope one of the local linux gurus can help you with the commands to use PPP and tar the proper files.

I offered to make a playlist just for my wife- she wasn't interested.

You're right about the empeg being a good home component. I see it as even more than that. I see it as a way to bring all of my music with me- at work, at home, at a friend's house, etc.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

PPP wouldn't be necessary: you can just tar over the pipe.

At the PC end:

cat /dev/usbthing >file.tar
(I've not used the 2.3 linux drivers, I don't know what the device name is)

On the empeg end:

tar cf /dev/usb0 /empeg/drive0

...should do it. Obviously, when it's finished you'll need to stop the cat at the PC end and tar tvf the file to check that it all got there ok.

Hugo

You're not the only one; we have stopped using our CD player now I have managed to get about 2/3 of our collection onto the empeg.

New hard disk time, methinks.