Need computer audio advice.

Good advice so far....my 2 cents follows:

I have almost 30,000 AIFF tracks on a 2tb drive and will probably never need more storage. So, because you’re only using your Mac’s 500 GB hard drive for your OS and other file storage now, as little as 1 or 2tb’s may be sufficient for your needs. No need to buy a 3 or 4tb drive for less than a few 100 GB’s of music files. In a few years, hard drives may well be made obsolete by SSD's (Solid State Drives) or some other newer technology.

Simply because I’m more fluent with Windows than OSX, I use my Windows PC to rip and copy files using dBpoweramp software. However, I transfer those files via an internal hard drive to my audio room’s PC which is a Mac Mini. I also buy internal hard drives and external docking units for internal hard drives. These docks are plug and play and most are "hot swappable". In my audio room to connect to my Mac Mini, I use one from this company: http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php. As already mentioned, firewire is preferable, so I bought a dock with that capability. I also have a similar dock that I use for my Windows machine, only it doesn't have firewire capability, which makes it more reasonably priced (i.e. the more connections [USB, SATA, Firewire etc.] the higher the price of the dock. BTW, if you don't need a firewire connection, a USB or SATA dock can be used on both a Windows or Apple machine.

Internal and External Hard drives are hard drives. You don't need to buy one from the Apple store, or for that matter, one specified for use on an Apple. You can format the drive for use on either an Apple or Windows PC or both. NewEgg.com is a site that I normally use for computer hardware, including hard drives.

As others have recommended, be sure and have a 2nd., or even a 3rd. (multiple) backup hard drives. You wouldn't want to lose all of the time you spent ripping your CD's and it's not a matter of if a HD will fail, it's just a question of when.

Moreover, always remember that not only should we protect our hard drive’s from mechanical/electronic failure with at least 1 back-up, but also from virus infections or power surges etc. Thus, multiple hard drives in one PC, or externally housed in a NAS or some other multi-bay storage unit, can all be simultaneously affected (damaged) by the aforementioned virus or power/lightning surge. Thus, I make sure to keep a hard drive that contains all of my music files offsite; in my case, at a relative’s house. One can't predict when a fire, flood, storm damage, lightning strike etc. can affect your home and its contents.

If you haven’t already found these sites, a wealth of PC Audio information can be found here: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/ and http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/bbs.html. The former site (Computer Audiophile) not only contains a forum, but the site owner, Chris, has published some very detailed and insightful instructions regarding ripping software, media playing software, etc. His site also contains his reviews of the hardware that is related to PC Audio.

I have been using 2Gb external USB drives with Squeezebox system via Wifi now for a few years. Works great, sounds great, a good way to go.

If there is an issue it will be with wifi bandwidth to handle high res files. I have thousands of CD quality lossless files I use, but have not tried Hires. The issue would be rebuffering delays if not enough network bandwidth for hi res, not sound quality. I have no problems with any of this with CD res files.

Thanks for all your responses. Very helpful.

Ignore most of the advice above, you're using a squeezebox. so it's simple. I use a 2TB HD and also the internal drive on an imac that's running LMS. No problem at all. Simply copy everything to the external HD, go into LMS and add that folder to the library and have it scan it.

The Squeezebox is convenient but IMHO it's not the best quality I've heard on my system. I think Steve sells a reclocker that can work with the Squeezebox that will improve things significantly tho.