Sion

a computer cd jukebox


meaning modifying a cd jukebox (or even a 10 disc cd changer) to be a peripheral to a home pc. then you could put all of your data, game and music cds in it and be able to switch from one disc to another using just a couple of mouse clicks. really, it wouldnt be that hard to do, for someone with a bit of hardware tech knowledge and a bit of programming knowledge.


or maybe someone has already done it and I just have never heard of it.

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eternaluxe

I know how fun hardware hacking would be, but a large HD could hold all your tunes and disk images etc. without going to all that trouble.

TSerra

This is the only thing I've ever seen like that:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...0%20P&CatId=44

It sounds pretty cool though.

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evercl

I don't think they're as popular as they used to be with HD space being so cheap. But this school district I used to work at had a 10 cd changer. It wouldn't ok, but it cost about a 1000 bucks and now you can get a small NAS for that.

Sion

TSerra, thats exactly what I was talking about. Although an actual cd jukebox would look much cooler, it would also take up much more space.

as for HD space, its still cheaper to buy the Century cd/dvd organizer than put everything on HD. for example, I have about 100 audio cds, about 30 burned movie cds, probably 40 or so software cds, not to mention about a dozens dvds. add up all that data and I'd need about 500 gigs of HD space. even at todays prices, the cd organizer is way cheaper. and then you get into the time it would take to put all that data into a HD, not to mention the possible data loss if a HD fails.

__________________
He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

billege

It'd be cheaper for you to set up an honest to god RAID 5 array. None of that bullshit RAID, the good setup. You buy yourself some WD WESTERN DIGITAL EIDE HARD DRIVE 120GB 7200RPM MODEL # WD1200BB -Caviar OEM, DRIVE ONLY for $97/ea.
So, there's your 600Gb for $500. After parity data loss, you're back down to 510GB (RAID 5 eats, what, 30% of total storage for pairity). But, you can always add more drives.
'Course your going to need a huge freaking case for that many drives, so go buy a new one, get a big PS while you're at it. Don't for get the controller either.

So, maybe it wouldn't be cheaper.
It'd be faster though.

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Pragma

RAID5 loses one drive for parity, the way it's configured.

With 3 drives, you only have the space you'd get from 2.

With 7 drives, you'd have the space you'd get from 6, etc.

RAID5 is the best, for people who are serious about data integrity.

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bullgoose

Being a Linux user, I tend to think differently so I bought an SCSI server; I've also got an old AT-style case that will hold 10 hard drives; that's going to be my external case; I've got somewhere between 300-400 CD's; Ogg Vorbis will compress them by a factor of 10 with little sound quality degradation; (My hearing sucks anyway; 30 years in a machine shop environment will do that). SCSI is a little more expensive, but the speed and flexibility is worth it.

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juanvaldes

Back in the mid 90's we had what your looking for. It was a 7 disk CD changer (blistering fast at 4x) that would mount all 7 disks at once for use. It was pretty cool

Pragma

Agreed. At work, we use nothing but SCSI for our servers. The main issue is that if you get the 15k RPM drives, we end up paying something like 600$ for a 36.4GB drive. It's about 300$ cheaper, per drive, for the 10k versions.

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JStrider

i have acquired a 4x 3cd changer when i got an old gateway tower that i want to turn into a liquor cabinet... i havnt plugged it in or anything yet... im thinkin about doin it tho...

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Jolt

don't bother...just chuck it...seriously...those Torisan changers were nothing but crap. NEC made some 4-disc changers which were only slightly less crappy.

Years ago, Pioneer made a series of changers based on the same 6-pack mechanism as their audio CD players...and Nakamichi made a 7-disc changer. These are external SCSI devices; each is about the size of a shoebox. They were very popular with libraries and schools in the late 90's.

I have done some conslutting work for a couple libraries and have fought with a lot of CD drives. If you want to go multiple, go SCSI. Multiple IDE drive setups just don't work as nicely.

Considering that you can get SCSI 12x CD drives from surplus vendors for around $10 each...the price of a complete subsystem could be around a hundred bucks...