[Crimson]

I was just browsing the web and stumbled upon this ripper/storage device that is both DLNA and DAAP compliant. It supports the Squeezebox, Roku, Sonos, PS3, XBox 360 etc and iTunes, can be wired or wireless, and is expandable and upgradeable. Seems like a nice box with the only down side being it rips to FLAC and/or MP3 only.

More info here:

http://www.ripstyles.com/ripserver.html

[Brad]

That looks pretty cool.
very high ease of use factor

(wonder if it voids the license to swap in a larger hd.)

[Crimson]

That looks pretty cool.
very high ease of use factor

(wonder if it voids the license to swap in a larger hd.)

Probably would. Their website says extra storage can be attached.

[JLM]

Why not just buy two external 500 GB Western Digital HDs for $300 and USB them to your computer? (Picked the same brand they mention and quoted the price from Best Buys website)?  This would also allow you to keep one off-site in case of theft/fire/etc.

(I'm a computer dummy.)

[Crimson]

Why not just buy two external 500 GB Western Digital HDs for $300 and USB them to your computer? (Picked the same brand they mention and quoted the price from Best Buys website)?  This would also allow you to keep one off-site in case of theft/fire/etc.

(I'm a computer dummy.)

Basically, this product is a combo NAS device with a DVD drive bundled into a single package. One of the advantages of NAS is, for example, the ability to stream from a music library to a Squeezebox without having a computer on (it is, in essence, a mini computer). It acts just like any other client on a network (even though it's referred to as a server).

[Brad]

And a (likely) quiet package that auto-rips and catalogs the music.....
I like the fact that they are doing RAID 1

Still, you are paying for the convenience and quiet

[kbuzz3]

will be interesting to compare this to the music vault recently discussed here at http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=49699.30  and on six moons.

i see that ripstyles also has a ripping service at 1 dollar a cd. I wonder if they offer a discount for ripping if you buy their machine.

As i have also posted re the vault. What happens when one of your drive goes? Can you shut if off and open it yourself to replace the damaged drive. Or does it have to be shipped back to canada?

finally, would it make more sense to just buy a mac mini and two hard drives.  Of course you would have to set up both ripping and squeezebox type software.  Many of us cant even do that....

[Crimson]

will be interesting to compare this to the music vault recently discussed here at http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=49699.30  and on six moons

Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware. I guess at this point it's all in the packaging.