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Post by normg on Jul 28, 2011 8:13:56 GMT
Hi guys, i purchased a 1 terabit portable hard drive to store all my music etc. Is there a stand alone program i can put on this drive to play, organise etc the music without having to use windows media player, real player etc. I would like to have my music organised so that i can plug into a computer and use the portable hard drive program. Does this make sense? cheers norm
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Post by twang46 on Jul 28, 2011 8:33:44 GMT
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Post by rogercook on Jul 28, 2011 8:54:07 GMT
Hi Norm
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to achieve. There are a few alternatives to Windows Media Player (try googling "media player")and you could probably install one of these on the portable hard drive and run it from there.
You can also organise your music using My Computer (or equivalent depending on your operating system) which would gve you an option to play single tracks or to use the play all function for a whole album. This will invoke your default media player to actually play the track(s)
Roger
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Post by normg on Jul 28, 2011 9:27:05 GMT
hi guys thanks for your replys. i have about 150gb of music which takes a lot of my existing hard drive space and i thought there must be a simplier way ie by way of a portable hard drive with its own programme. I hope i'm making it clear - i'm not that computer literate. cheers norm
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Post by DaveC on Jul 28, 2011 9:50:24 GMT
Hi Norm,
The best organizer of all was Musicmatch Jukebox. This was bought out by YaHoo and then abandoned so it's not available commercially anymore. However versions of can still be downloaded for free and copyright is no longer enforced.
The best version is V10 (with the "Onyx" skin if you can find it) but there are a few problems. You have to install it as Administrator (especially on Windows7) and do not click on the Store or Radio options or it will lock-up.
If you can find a copy of this and can install it then let me know and I'll tell you how to use it with your external drive.
I should point out that it will not be of any use without your computer to access the hard drive. I don't know of any stand alone program that will work since the drive does not have any computing power of its own.
DaveC
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Post by bluelenton on Jul 28, 2011 10:02:08 GMT
Hi Norm, If you want to free up the space on your hard drive simply transfer all your music files to your portable drive and delete them from your computer hard drive,this will free up the computer hard drive you then will be able to play them in whatever media play you have on your comper or you could load something like Adobe Media Player to your portable drive and play them from there but make sure that you change all the music files on it to open with the Adobe player only. If you need any further advice PM me. Regards John
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Post by Charlie Hall on Jul 28, 2011 13:36:48 GMT
Hi Norm, I can imagine installing a player of any kind could cause registry errors on whatever computer it is used with. However, if you feel you must, you could try VLC player. Although it may not work unless the required codecs are installed on the computer in use. Personally, to free up space on the computer, I would transfer all the files to the external drive, and they should still play on the computer's own player. Regards, Charlie
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Post by shadfan4 on Jul 28, 2011 13:43:23 GMT
1tb will hold a lot of music. IMHO the best player is to have Winamp installed. (But only on your computer)
Mike.
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Post by normg on Jul 29, 2011 5:28:54 GMT
Thanks guys for your answers, collectively you have answered my question. I thought that when playing music from a portable hard drive it stored it on the computer drive and kept it there taking up storage space. Apparently not. Thanks guys cheers norm
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Geza
Member
Posts: 88
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Post by Geza on Jul 31, 2011 17:38:28 GMT
One more thing to consider: backup.
Because any hard drive, external or internal will crash and die one day, the only question is not whether it will or won't but WHEN. So, if all the 150 GB of valuable music of yours is sitting on one drive, eventually you will loose all of them at once when that drive dies.
As a general rule and the best scenario is to have a huge hard disk in your computer for your files and have the same size drive externally for regular mirror backup. In this case one of them dies, you still have the other one.
For example I have two physical hard disks in my computer a smaller one for the operating system and all software (Drive C:) and a larger capacity drive for all my music, pictures, videos. (Drive D:).
If the disk of drive c: dies, I only have to restore drive C: on a newly installed drive, if my data drive dies, I just have to restore my data.
So the chances for loosing both the OS and software drive AND the data is close to zero but even if that happens I can restore both separately from my external backup drive.
There are several good solutions for this kind of protection, which one to use depends on what kind of computer environment you have.
Geza
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2011 18:39:47 GMT
Although the question is non-networked related the knowledge that there are networked attached storage ( called NAS) are very supportive in avoiding data loss but also in providing support in the multi-media domain like music, pictures, video's and the like. In most cases this NAS device can interface to, as an example, TV to provide full transparency with The video's stored on the NAS. Most of the NAS solutions are with multiple drives so RAID is used hence the reliability of keeping data is very high. Those devices are also maintaining the data in the background to assure it's stored in the best way.
Statistical, the failure/year for a hard disc is around 4% based on MTBF figures as you can find in the data sheets of state-of-the-art drives. Yes, a backup to another medium is key to survive disaster!!
Piet
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Post by normg on Aug 1, 2011 5:41:02 GMT
Thanks guys, i think my next purchase will be a backup drive. Once again thanks for your replys. cheers norm
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Post by DaveC on Aug 1, 2011 10:05:56 GMT
Hi Norm, As Piet says, a good way to establish a safe storage/backup system (external to the computer) is to use a network drive in a "mirror" (RAID 1) configuration. I bought an Iomega 2Tb/2Tb unit from PC World a month ago for £260. It took 10mins to connect it to my modem/router and set it up, and about 45mins to transfer all the data on my computer and MP3 jukebox. Of course this still requires your computer, software and soundcard for playback. If you are hellbent on having a stand alone MP3 jukebox then consider the Brennan JB7 www.brennan.co.uk/which has its own 60W amp and allows you to rip, file and play back all your music. The internal hard disk will store about 10 CDs per Gb. Prices range from £366 for a 160GB model to £479 for a 500GB model. The 1Tb USB drive (which you just bought) would then be used as a backup to this. DaveC
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