Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Sooloos Backup Strategy

Hi Sooloos Owners,

I've added a TwinStore (with two * 2TB Seagate Constellation Drives) to my C15 and disabled the storage in the C15 so all my albums are on the TwinStore (circa 3500 and growing).

My Sooloos Backup Strategy

For backup I have a simple StarTech 2.5"/3.5" SATA HDD docking station connected to my PC. I just drop in a 'bare' SATA drive and backup to it. Once complete I take the 'bare' drive (protected in its shipping packaging) to my office so I have an offsite back. I have two of these 'bare' drives and alternate them monthly between home and my office. The drive at home is updated weekly using ControlPC backup, which only take a few minutes to capture the changes.

Taking this approach gives me: Two copies on the TwinStore (for availability), plus two backups one at home and one offsite.

What do you guys do?

Regards,
Carl

Hi Carl ,

I'm about to receive a TwinStore and considering upping to 2TB and wondering precisely what drives you are using?

I think it makes sense to start off with 2TB from the get-go and am considering starting to re-rip my collection direct to TwinStore from scratch ( Any benefits ? ) and disabling storage on MC200 and doing those again as they can't be cut/pasted over to TwinStore AFAIK.

Regarding backup I have a 4TB HP server I was hoping to use for initial TwinStore backup if possible and then, like yourself, copy to another off-site drive(s) setup. It seems to me that you have all the bases covered.

I am assuming that everything 'played' from the TwinStore will benefit from the MC200/ID40 combination further downstream?

Best

M

Hi Carl,

I only backup when finished but what you are doing is a better approach. See my other post.

Hi M,

Yes, those are the ones I used; �155 each from eBuyer :

Seagate 2TB Constellation ES ST32000644NS - SATA-300; the automatic formatting in the TwinStore was very quick only about 10 minutes; then the TwinStore became available for use.

As I'm sure you spotted from the Seagate site, they now do the Constellation ES.2 ST33000650NS - 3 TB - SATA-600, which should also work fine in the TwinStore, but they�re not readily available yet in UK. Their available plus as I�ve got 800G of free space plus the 500G on the C15 if I really need it, I went for the 2TB drives.

Regards,
Carl

PS: Be very careful what you put in a TwinStore (or Ensemble) drive bay; as the automatic formatting will wipe the disk, including a formatted disk from an Ensemble. I'm told, but have not personally witnessed, that even moving a drive from one TwinStore to another with cause it to be formatted.

PPS: With a moderately fast PC and a 1G LAN / Switches etc.; I achieved a restore rate of 3 albums per minute.

It should be possible to use ControlPC / ControlMAC to perform a Sooloos backup of the albums on your MC200 on to a 3rd party disk. Then disable the MC200 storage and restore the backup onto the TwinStore. Effectively this is what I did with my C15. If you�re happy with the Rips on your MC200 this would save you a lot of time.

Regards,
Carl

This procedure was also described by Rick in the past as a reliable way of doing this.

Interesting, Thanks guys.

I don't have a Control15 so some of the options don't seem to be available, so it's encouraging that nobody has had any problems with drives as yet.

I hope that M update their User Guides soon as they really need to be current.

Cheers

M

To disable the MC200 storage (without a C10/C15), you will need to download the Meridian Sooloos Configuration Application (PC only no Mac version).

It's downloadable from the Meridian Sooloos Support Site

Regards,
Carl

Already done , Carl , Thanks . Not much to it so far but I think there's much more to come .

It would indeed make it much easier to backup MC200 and then copy to TwinStore although I need to be very sure that its ok to do that as I recall saying that you shouldnt copy say , an Ensemble's contents to a TwinStore for example . They are uniquely formatted ??

M

P.S. I would be very tempted by the 3tb drives if M would recommend them as Iwould like to put my 2-ch DVD-A tracks on there too before my 598 dies .......

Hi All,

You're fine backing up any Sooloos system to a NAS, and then restoring it to a different Sooloos system to move where to albums are stored.

I'm going to check again, but I don't think the Sooloos configuration program allows you to switch off the MC200 internal storage. Like it can with the Control 15. In fact I don't think even using a Control 15 you can turn off the MC200 storage.

I've been told this will be addressed in future versions of the Config Program, and have 'put the feelers out' to try to get a timescale for the feature.

Rick

Hi M,

You can't swap physical hard drives from an Ensemble to a TwinStore because the TwinStore will just reformate the disk. However, using ControlPC/MAC you can backup take a Sooloos Backup from one Sooloos store and restore it on to another type.

Using ControlPC I have performed the following with no issues:

Ensemble --> Sooloos Backup to 3rd party drive --> Sooloos Restore --> C15

C15 --> Sooloos Backup to 3rd party drive --> Sooloos Restore --> TwinStore

3TB drives: M don't even recommend the 2TB drives yet (MC600 excepted), so I doubt they will comment on the 3TB drives for a year or two.

Regards,
Carl

Just downloaded the Sooloos Config program from the Website to make sure I had the latest version, and I can't see any option to turn off the MC200 internal storage.

Rick