Building a PC to put on my network

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I would like help in building a PC to add to my network so that I can stream my collection of CD’s which I intend to rip into mp3’s. I am considering in getting a tower with three CD bays to help streamline ripping them. I have roughly 1,500 CD’s to rip. I do not know if a standard CD player will rip CD’s or not. I think 3 or 4 HDD would be sufficient depending on what size I would need. I would like to also be able to have a backup HD in case of any issues with any of the others or known as “cold storage.” I have a Bluetooth connectivity with my PC, but if there are other options with my Win 10 PC. I would like to know.

 

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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You don’t need much power to rip CDs but I don’t know if you can do multiple at once – it probably depends on the ripping software. Any old PC will do the work.

I always rip to FLAC – most things play FLAC natively. MP3 loses some data and you can always down convert from FLAC if you need mp3 for some reason.
You can expect to use 300-400MB per CD with FLAC, so around 600GB, or a single 1TB disk.

When you rip, use software that automatically adds the track info, including artwork, to the file. There are a few discussions here about ripping.

cheers, Paul

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Rush2112

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Thanks Paul,

This information helps me a lot. The ripping software that I use is Windows Media Player to rip files. I did a test rip and I do have FLAC capability. I’ll look for the discussions on ripping. I for some reason had assumed that I would need at least 2TB to store all of my collection onto.

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I am quite sure you can NOT rip more than one CD at a time on the same computer. Think of the process as a 1-armed robot sorting mail. The computer (the robot) can only grab one letter (one tune from the CD) at a time, then stuff it in recipient’s box (the disk). It is all “sequential”. You would need multiple computers (or a very fancy – and expensive – multiple processor computer) to do “parallel” copying – more than one CD at a time.

For the record, I have ripped over 600 CDs to my computer – or rather I ripped the songs I like from over 600 CDs. In some cases, that meant the entire CD. In others, just 1 or 2 songs from the CD. That amounted to 3,728 songs in 443 folders. Together, they take up less than 60GB of space.

FYI – not sure what you intend to do with your CDs after ripping them to your computer. It is important to understand, for licensing purposes and remain 100% legal, you must keep the original CDs in your possession. If you decide to sell (or even give away) or destroy the original CDs, you must erase all copies of the tunes.

Bill (AFE7Ret)
Freedom isn't free!

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I was unsure about the ability to rip more than one CD at a time. It had been mentioned to me. Therefore that is why I mentioned it. I for the most part intend to rip every song of each CD that I own, with certain exceptions. Like you had done on some disc’s where you would rip a song or two of that disc.

I do intend to keep my collection of CD’s. I have invested a lot of money into them and I do on occasion play a CD or two.

I have a question: In regards to ripping them to FLAC format and with each artists’ folder of albums and other artists’. When playing the files from within their respective folders. Can I still achieve random song playlists? I am not all that familiar with this style of ripping. I amused to ripping mp3’s and taking out the files that were created in the artists’ folder and transferring to another folder all together. Then transferring to a USB stick.

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Random play doesn’t care where the original data is, CD or file.

Ripping to FLAC is the same as ripping to MP3, except you don’t lose data.

cheers, Paul

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If you have any CD’s that are not perfect then a very good application to rip them is Exact Audio Copy https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

you can choose what format your rips end up as and it will download the CD track information from a choice of web sources

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I think you may find that sourcing a PC chassis that includes 5.25 inch internal bays for DVD/CD drives is a bit of a challenge these days. The PC cases today are mostly directed toward folks wanting to build gaming PCs and are all about supporting RGB fans and fancy AIO coolers. I am planning to build a new system for productivity and media and have been frustrated in finding a quality full tower ATX chassis that offers the internal bays to install a DVD/CD or SD Card Reader drives. The old Corsair Obsidian 750 D was a great case but that is discontinued. The assumption now is everything is going to be done with a USB drive and optical drives are so yesterday.

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