If my math has not failed me (it's early yet), a 2TB drive will store over 2,500 700 MB ISOs...so perhaps you could opt to simply take images of the discs to keep a full range of options on the table. Unless yours is a collection that would put ten of mine to shame, you may even have enough space left on the drive for when/how you intend to encode them...and then should you change your mind post-encode (FLAC sucks, MP3 all the way! ... I kid, I kid) it's purely a data matter to re-encode your entire collection. I'll also give a shameless plug for our local computer retailers (Feda, Canada Computers, PC Cyber, RB Computers)...you can often do better than $100 for a 2TB drive if you watch the flyers. Good luck! On 10 March 2011 08:47, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday [ at ] crashcourse [ dot ] ca> wrote: > > when i make the final move to ottawa, i'll be in a condo that will > have noticeably less space than where i am now so i don't want to > waste any of that with CDs out on display in CD racks. ergo, and > predictably, i want to start the process of computerizing the entire > collection, then deciding how i want to set things up to play them. > (always wanted to do this, just never had sufficient incentive.) > > i haven't decided on the final selection and playing technology but > i would like to start just encoding them, little by little, to a > massive external hard drive (a couple terabytes is $100 these days at > best buy). what's a safe strategy i can use to start copying them to > disk so that, no matter what i choose to do later, i won't have to > redo all that work? > > my first thought is to simply use something like rhythmbox and save > everything in FLAC format (yes, that will take way more room but, what > the heck, hard drives are cheap these days). and later, if i want, i > can always use a script or some other utility to encode them all to > ogg format. > > also, since it would be nice to be able to play tunes from any > laptop in the place, i was thinking of dropping the hard drive on the > USB port of the wireless router, and making it accessible both from my > linux systems and from my girlfriend's powerbook. > > suggestions? in short, i just want to start the tedious process of > copying all that music to a hard drive, while not having to decide > just yet how i'm going to finish the setup later. > > rday > > -- > > ======================================================================== > Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA > http://crashcourse.ca > > Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday > LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday > ======================================================================== > _______________________________________________ > Linux mailing list > Linux [ at ] lists [ dot ] oclug [ dot ] on [ dot ] ca > http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/linux > -- "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." -- Thomas Paine