[Flac-dev] CD Baby using FLAC to archive 40,000 CDs

[Derek at CD Baby]

> > Just thought you'd like to know CD Baby has switched to FLAC for
> > archiving the 40,000 CDs we have in stock.
> > Luckily HD space is down below $1/gig so we got a 6-terabyte RAID-5
> > box set up for about $7000.
> 
> Well, even if you do have a lot of Morton Feldman (currently my record
> for best compression ratio--about 0.25 or so), I don't think you're
> going to get 40,000 CDs onto only 6 terrabytes.

No but that's all I bought for now to get started.
So that when it's full we buy another batch of hardware at an even cheaper price.
Hard drive prices always dropping, y'know!


 
> But I'd be interested to know what sort of hardware you're using

Just el-cheapo FreeBSD beige boxes with Lite-On CD-Rom drives.
They've got the fastest audio ripping I've ever found (24x or so).



> extremely interested in knowing how you're ripping the CDs

cdda2wav to internal hard drives.  Then coverting overnight with no people around.
Wrote a PHP script where the person can enter our unique SKU for that CD,
it shows it on the screen to confirm it's the correct SKU, then they click GO.

But definitely doing them as individual songs.  Not as a whole CD.
We need the separate songs for working with services like iTunes + Rhapsody.




--
Derek Sivers, CD Baby, Hostbaby
http://www.cdbaby.com  <-- best new independent music
http://www.hostbaby.com <-- web hosting for musicians