Jimbolico

RAID WILL improve perfomance, no question about it. It's called RAID0, level 0. This level if for non-fault tolerant arrays. It permits up to 14 drives as 1 single drive letter, operated in sequence by a 2 channel controller. The best controllers must be plugged into 133Mhz PCI-x slot and have cache upgrade to 512 or 1Gb DDR. IDE is not used. IDE is only for CD drives, take your IDE drives and throw them away. IDE operates up to 133Mb/s. SATA operates at 150Mb/s. Ultra160 SCSI operates at 160Mb/s. Ultra320 SCSI operates at 320Mb/s. Which would you build an array with? Which would you choose for a system disc? 2 cpus are faster than 1. Ultra320 drives are faster than SATA. 2 channel RAIDs are faster than single channel. PCI-x is faster than PCI. USB2.0 is faster than IDE. With this in mind, plug a SRCU42x (512cache)-2 channel Ultra320 RAID 0-into a PCI-x slot and chain 3-7 drives per channel. I think it peaks at 5 per channel and then see's neg effect from too many drives. (operation of array becomes counter-productive) RAID management is a breeze, you are already capable, I can tell. Plus you can remove them from the array and make single fixed volumes, all from the same controller or plug in a 29320 or 19160 for single system drives, fixed volumes not on the SRCU42x. Can have 2x2 RAID0 with 2x5 RAID10. Raid levels differ the 'type' of fault tolerance you are needing, easily understood while creating the array from within the controllers setup options. Windows has 'disk management' tool which makes creating a 'logical' drive a breeze these days. XP and 2K are fullproof and simple, quick to format and initialize. By far, the easiest thing you ever did was format 6 drives at once, all in the blink of an eye. The best way to de-task your CPU is to add another one, and then add a RAID controller. It's much more efficient at writing files. The cache of the controller helps more than the cache of the drive. Upgrade the controller cache to 512 or 1Gb if supported. I am doing a lot of Video editing, Photoshop or other image processing work. I showed my backup system, the 1x4 array. It's still a great peformer for SonicStage3.4 and 130Gb of files. Main system just does the captures. All the systems work together for frame rendering. One of the servers is for CAD and has no array. But it does have a 29320 and a U320 system drive. Of course! Win2K,SP3 - SonicStage 3.4 - 2000 song Library of WAV files (132Gb) 6 Seconds to initialize first try 2 Seconds to initialize second try System specs; Supermicro SC833S-550 + X5DAE Dual Xeon 2.8 533mHZ 2Gb DDR266 36Gb U160 SCSI System Drive/Adaptec 29320 588Gb U320 SCSI Raid 0 15K Drives (1x4)/Adaptec 2200s 147Gb U320 SCSI Volume 15K Drive 1/Adaptec 2200s 147Gb U320 SCSI Volume 10K Drive 2/Adaptec 2200s Sony NW-HD2 portable device

Win2K,SP3 - SonicStage 3.4 - 2000 song Library of WAV files (132Gb) 6 Seconds to initialize first try 2 Seconds to initialize second try System specs; Supermicro SC833S-550 + X5DAE Dual Xeon 2.8 533mHZ 2Gb DDR266 36Gb U160 SCSI System Drive/Adaptec 29320 588Gb U320 SCSI Raid 0 Drives (1x4)/Adaptec 2200s Sony NW-HD2 portable device

The software won't let you choose sort method, like ANY other piece of software would... It does however permit 'Playlists'. I would recommend making playlists from the start, the songs you like in the order you like. I'm randomized playback anyway so ordering alpabetically makes sense for me, easy to find specifics that way. Entire playlists are transferable to the device and that makes it convenient to switch genres / moods when using the device, playlists can be called up individually or as multiples and randomized. Alphabetical sorting is almost manual with the software, and that limitation should be addressed or dealt with as a workflow. It's possible to insert tracks where ever in the playlist you prefer, beginning, end, alphabetical. The Library itself needs to be sorted by selectable means. Just my opinion. To remove the categorization of the library, I removed all the tags and converted mp3s to wav files, no tags, no categories, but long file names instead since it's all one long list.

Yes I had incosistant behavior from SS, it would crash at anytime deleting 3200 files with it. I lost thousands of files, the RAID crashed, I mean I had serious problems all along the way. But not with WAV files. After a while this began to make sense, the mp3s I was importing came from all over the world, at different times and were slightly different formats. Yet the WAV files were not. They were plain jane, if you know what I mean. The only thing WAV retains is the audio. -Jim I don't mean to be vague. I had probs importing, I had probs converting, I had probs playing... what seemed to be the result of a mixture of MP3 formats. As mentioned earlier, corrupt files, etc. plagued me. I also suffered hardware conflict. In order to charge my player I unplugged my network power. My computer doesn't like being wired into a powered down network and crashes just on that premise. So there were a variable of factors. Plug my network back in, unplug the telephone. (!!!) Can't hear it anyway!~

I just got my software up and running thanks to the help of others on this site. I had 3800 mp3 files to deal with and this seemed impossible. But not true. What worked for me was doing transcodes on my mp3s and convert them to WAV files. The process was simple and only took 5.5 hours for all of them. Yes, the file sizes will grow. Yes, you will lose your TAGs. But that's not as important as getting them to work. Problem for me? I have been enjoying these mp3s for so long, I have used many applications to play and edit them. For one, I used MusicMatch for years. MusicMatch edits mp3 files when it does 'volume leveling' and it edits them when you add or remove TAGs. These files would not play properly in SS3.4. But when I converted them to wav format, I retained the original quality of the file, yet lost the TAGs. I have no trouble importing these WAV files into SS3.4 library. SonicStage has issues with mp3 files but not with WAV files. I started by converting my favorite songs to WAV, the ones I have burned to CD in the past and volume level'd. The WAV files now play perfectly. I still retain all my original mp3 files but now also have a separate section for the WAV files, nothing has been lost. I just have a special directory for the SS3.4 library files, all WAVs. To reduce space I tried to convert to mp3 again, but has many issues importing and playing, files sounded poor. My issue could be hardware related, playing files from RAID array. But when I use WAV files everything plays just fine. I'm not trying to put 3800 on my player, but I have at least 450 that I 'randomize' and enjoy hours upon hours of music without turning on a computer. In my set of 3800 files I found some corrupt files. These definately will hang SS3.4. For me, these were complete album mp3s, zipped into zip file and named with an mp3 extension. They weren't mp3 files, but zip files named as mp3. Certainly these will cause problems. I had to sort out other files as well, known issues with their mp3 format. Again, these files were corrupt and I needed to sort them out of the collection but never paid attention in the past. When I was coverting to WAV found other corrupt files, mp3 files that never played proper or were incorrectly named. Through this process I was able to easily sort out the troubled files, matter of fact they did not convert to WAV. The files that successfully converted to WAV format were infact good files. The set of WAV files are what I use. SonicStage no longer has problems. It's my conclusion that it's the files that you're trying to put into your SS library, some are good, some are modified by MusicMatch (or other application), some are incorrectly named, etc... this will cause the incosistancy you see in SonicStage. -Jim

I'm also having trouble with my new files. I have just processed my mp3 files into WAV format and would like to be able to include artist and album information for my files. Can't these be tagged by filename using some handy application other than MusicMatch? MusicMatch would rename batch quantities with ease, and maybe that will work for you, but the tags attatched aren't showing up in SonicStage, just the lengthy file name. Help? Internet connect and let it do 'lookups'?? -Jim

One things for certain - My stepdaughter, although she's 16, would have never (ever) figured this out. Thanks Again Guys. So far so good. I know I'm overtasking the computer and the device now. Tis a bit much to ask. Forgot to reset a temp directory and it loaded the system drive with temp files, I mean loaded. Next started swapping over to the array and boom, down goes that set of drives, reformatting, restarting with a new wide open space for all the conversions, temp files, WAV files (took over 100Gb) and of course, my mp3s that wouldn't hop onto the NW-HD2 (isn't that short for Network Hardrive?)

I agree with you. I'm not a fan of tags so I have to remove those. I like MM for the naming convenience, it names my tracks just the way I like them. THe interface is about as annoying as XPs. Personally I think they should go back to NT4 and start over. Scrap the gaudy interface for Windows, scrap all the interfaces altogether. Those are for morons. I don't need anything but screenspace and a keyboard. So I found a 'batch conversion' command in Goldwave and I'm running it on all the mp3 files. It's going to fill up my 800Gb array but I'll scrap them after transcoding to the NW-HD2. It's converting to WAV and then I'll convert them to ATRAC3 and dump them on the device and call it a day. I think it has alot to do with the compression myself. Thanks ALL. So in summary, on my computer, some mp3 files play like garbage in SS3.4. In order for all these files to play well I ran a 'batch process' on them using Goldwave. The WAV files then play perfectly in SS3.4 and those will be used to convert to ATRAC and push to the device. The batch conversion is just as simple as any other task, set it up and wait for it to finish. I think I'll do all 3800 just to be safe. Probably take DAYS. [3800 x 2sec. ea. = 7200sec. / 60 sec = 120 minutes] oH Well, that computer was doing nothing anyway. Actually it took 5.5 hours. -Jim

Guys that's informative. I've heard of other useful software but don't know where / how to find it. Any suggestions? OK. I fixed some of the damaged tracks. These files were typically downloaded or eMailed to me from friends. I have friends that don't believe in ripping their CDs, just download. For me, I'm not a downloader much. But anyway, those tracks are mp3s and must have something in them that SS recognizes, because it's expert at destroying them. Here's how I fixed them. I used a mp3-wav converter app and saved the files as WAV. Then they play perfecto in SS3.4. But when they're mp3 the play like... like... like somebody is tapping the bongos while the song plays through. Piracy Prevention? These files as WAV sound pefect. It's not an input issue either because I modded the files and dropped the volume of the tracks, same issues. 44.1Khz mp3s. But as waves they play just fine, even convert over to Atrac or Lossless and sound great. Is this a workabout that you've heard of? Should I be having this much problems? What could be contained in a .mp3? Alot of these songs were transfered from CD to MD then ripped by 'line in' to mp3 using MusicMatch. They weren't downloaded. ??? What a stumper! After all these years of saving files and songs into digital, I had hoped the NW-HD2 would hold them all and let me JAM them anywhere, anytime. Another word about that computer. It's loaded with CODECs for video and audio, it's my video capture server and uses a Pinnacle DC1000 mpg card. There's a ton of CODECS that get used with it and Adobe Premier but have never had a problem with those. This is just another of many reasons why my computers have deticated uses. One for CAD and that's all it does, with some digital camera and a printer hooked into it, I mod my photos there. The problem computer is vid cap #2 and the primary capture computer is #1, same DC1000 (DVD2000) setup on a RAID array, loads of codecs. For now I think I only have 380 files to convert to WAV... should be no problem right? Just kidding. I've tried the download section; logged in; nothing was working there. OK it's working today, it has a bandwidth exceeded error or something but it's coming now. Will try re-install. Way to GO.

You guys make alot of sense though. It's nice to hear that you guys are up and running with flawless integrity. This reassures me and I would say it's something to do with drivers as mentioned above. I figure I'll try again on XP. Another workabout will be to buy the software from Sony since they don't let it out anymore. I've waited awhile to get to know the device, a little longer won't hurt, I guess. If the PRO around here would care to comment?

It would be nice to hear from any of the other users who are familiar with the software. I may be having an isolated instance here; some kind of hardware conflict. I would be happy to try another computer to do transfers to the device on but would like to know from other users if they've experienced pop/click during mp3 playback using SonicStage3.4 I have 4 computers but I'm very hesitant to upgrade their service packs or let them on the internet. The one computer that I did the update on now has issues that it never had before. This is why I don't like my computers on the internet. Except this one, NT4 SP6. Help would be appreciated. -Jim

Very very few are VBR. I have only 5 or so. Everyting I rip is done with 192 fixed bitrate. (CBR) Since the initial software hang/crash I've had zero problems. I'm working with a new duplication of my store directory. I only load about 400 files into the library at one time, instead of pushing for 3800. I thought I would lighten it's load and reduce the burden. I love the small device, the NW-HD2. I'm not complaining about it, gosh this thing is COOL. It's the software that is not playing the files. Now I'm suspecting a re-patch of SP3 would help? As you all know, I could not download a 'full' version of SS3.4 and instead Sony had me connect my server to the internet (woefully) and it installed the package from their download manager. ((FYI- 2 years ago I gave the device as a Chrismas Gift, it was returned to me unused because the recipient did not understand the complicated process of ripping CDs, loading the Library, converting to ATRAC3, and transferring to the device. It's UNUSED!!!))

Uh oh... Correct these are still in .mp3 format. At least that's what is says in the format bar/column. I used Musicmatch to rip the CDs long ago and the files seem to be very nice for many many months. I was surprised to hear the SS was having trouble playing them. Hardware is a dual Xeon server, playing files from RAID array under Windows 2000 SP3. As I said before all the other applications play these files perfectly but not SS. SonicStage is the only application that produces all these pops right from the library. At first I tried to put them on my NW-HD2 and they were converted to ATRAC64 (basic) and they were destroyed. The good news is I found the settings to permit transfer in 192 and 256. Some of the working files tranferred over just perfectly / acceptably. The files that have pop/click do not. They're exactly like SS play them. I have less than 20Gb of total data, I would've been overjoyed to be able to dump them exactly as I have them to the NW-HD2 but this file format must be converted. Sony Support suggested that I speak to them on the telephone and I will call them when they're service center opens. Guess what else. Before I put anything into SS I made a duplication of the folder storing those .mp3s. SonicStage deleted them during a software hang/crash. Received error message 'some data may be lost' I was glad it was a duplication of the folder, not my set of 3800. -Jim

Hey guys! I'm new to this arena and I'm here because I've just installed SonicStage 3.4 and am using it for the first time. I have loaded the Library with my stash of .mp3 files. The SonicStage software has a playback feature allowing me to play those .mp3s on my computer and listen to my tracks. Some of my files play perfectly and some of them are LOADED with pop / clicks. At first I suspected that the volume of the track was so high that I was hearing a 'clip'. But I listened to some of my 'soft' music and it's got the pop / clicks too? Is there something that I'm missing? These same files play just fine in all other applications. What's worse is even after I transfer these tunes to my NW-HD2 I hear them there too. This is a software issue? If the files played in the library are not converted to ATRAC3, and they are the native .mp3 file then why would I hear so many pop/clicks? There must be something I'm missing. I thought file conversion was taking place as I transferred to the device. But perhaps all the files in my Library are converted to some other format? Any help would be appreciated because I can't tolerate this low quality audio from some of my quietest music. Please help me. -Jim