Tip: Speed up Media Conversions on a PC or MAC

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HomerJAU

Moderator: MCH Media Players
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I’m going through the process of doing Penteo Upmixes of all my stereo files, CD rips, vinyl rips, stereo DVDs etc.

There‘s a fair amount of reading/writing during conversions and my original source files are on my NAS, which is relatively slow using spinning hard drives (HDD).

So I had an idea. I already have a USB 3.1 HDD Docking Station I use for backing up to relatively cheap HDDs:
https://www.startech.com/HDD/Docking/usb-3-1-gen-2-esata-dock~SDOCKU313E
I bought a new 2TB SSD SATA drive to use as by working drive (you can use a smaller one for sure)
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E2T0B-AM/dp/B0786QNSBD
The USB dock is connected to one of my my PC’s USB 3.1 ports (10Gbps) and now I get around 300MB/s transfers from my PC to SSD drive. I can still remove it and whack a backup drive in to do backups, but anything that need file processing is faster. Drives are easily plugged in and removed.

I‘ve copied all my existing stereo files onto the SSD just while I’m working with them for conversions, so now much faster access to them for processing..

This also applies to working with SACD ISOs, DVD and BD rips when you need to convert to FLAC and tag etc. Rip from disc to SSD and then do your thing on the SSD, copy the final files to your music collection on normal (cheaper) storage. The SSD being solely for a fast working drive and significantly faster than a conventional HDD.
 
You can also bus UBB 3.1 and USB 3.0 (5Gbps) external SSD drives but they are more expensive per MB than using a dock. The dock also adds ability to use normal 3.5” HDDs (cheap per MB) which are also faster than many external 2,5” USB 3.0 drives.
 
That’s a great idea to help speed things up. I have an external hard drive I want to back up. I want to make sure everything is transferred. What would be a good way to make sure I have everything transferred over without missing parts?
 
Good tip indeed. My only currently working laptop is an old one, bus 2.0 so no fast speeds there despite using an external ssd for transfering - however, once processed to that ssd (I usually fill it up) I move it to my NAS which has 3.1 ports and there we go, all the loaded rips transferred in a minute.
 
That’s a great idea to help speed things up. I have an external hard drive I want to back up. I want to make sure everything is transferred. What would be a good way to make sure I have everything transferred over without missing parts?
I have 2 different StarTech Docking Stations, one needs the PC connected via USB so you can just copy all to the SSD/HDD in the docking station (no good for Linux formatted drives i.e. as found in NAS if using Windows) and another completely standalone or USB connected one where you put the naked SSD/HDDs into the slots and copy one to the other (very quick) and good for all OS it copies an image across.
STARTECH SDOCK2U33V USB 3.0 Dual Bay SATA 2.5/3.5" HDD/SSD Docking Station
STARTECH SDOCK2U313R USB 3.1 Standalone Duplicator Dock for 2.5" & 3.5" SATA SSD/HDD Drives
 
I have 2 different StarTech Docking Stations, one needs the PC connected via USB so you can just copy all to the SSD/HDD in the docking station (no good for Linux formatted drives i.e. as found in NAS if using Windows) and another completely standalone or USB connected one where you put the naked SSD/HDDs into the slots and copy one to the other (very quick) and good for all OS it copies an image across.
STARTECH SDOCK2U33V USB 3.0 Dual Bay SATA 2.5/3.5" HDD/SSD Docking Station
STARTECH SDOCK2U313R USB 3.1 Standalone Duplicator Dock for 2.5" & 3.5" SATA SSD/HDD Drives
THats a nice little gadget I’ll pick up. But what I mean is, to copy about 250 gigs from one computer to another but don’t want to lose any info in the transfer. Like a kind of check to verify you have everything the same on both. Thank you
 
I use Xcopy on Windows to do bulk copying. But just standard Windows Copy and Paste for just a dozen or so folders. I’ve never had any issue with file corruption on a modern PC, Server or NAS.
 
About 200 gigs of music. I’ll check out Xcopy. Thank you

Apologies. That was my first post early this morning. Brain not fully engaged: not Xcopy Robocopy

Its a command line tool in Windows, I create a batch file:

Robocopy ONLY copies files that are new or newer than files on destination

This copies every folder and file from New Music folder to Audio (Surround) folder, including sub-folders and verifies copied files

robocopy "F:\New Music" "N:\Audio (Surround)" *.* /s /FFT /v

parameters
Source Folder - "Quotes Needed if Spaces in Folder Names"
Destination Folder - "Quotes Needed if Spaces in Folder Names"
*.* (all files)
/s (include sub-folders)
/FFT (needed if at least one disc files system FAT )
/v (verify destination files same as source files)
 
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