Why not use drive letter instead of media ID ?

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Ron Koci
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Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:32 pm

Drive ID vs Drive Letter debate

Post by Ron Koci »

Sorry, didn't mean to rant.

I'm not a fan of ADS for that many uses either - more of a "toy" unless you need them for Mac compatibility or something else special...

I just get frustrated at having to rescan for files for 20 minutes everytime I want to listen to music, and it was suggested that a simple file containing an ID would likely get deleted by users.

I guess I'm not too concerned about deletions - users would likely only delete it once before they figured out what the file was for, and the name of the file could make it pretty obvious anway :D

Ron
Lowlander
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Post by Lowlander »

If I see how many users are upset by MediaMonkey having program files in the My Music directory I'd imagine people being upset about have a MediaMonkey related file on each harddrive they have music.

I think that you should use the network path to the Samba server instead of mapping it as a harddrive. This probably works better, especially as network paths don't have a device ID. As you use MediaMonkey the actual path (mapped drive or network path) shouldn't be a problem.
Ron Koci
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Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 3:32 pm

Drive IDs

Post by Ron Koci »

Well duh - that's the answer I was looking for :oops:

Thanks!

Ron
Lowlander
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Post by Lowlander »

@Developers
How does Windows manage serial numbers of networked drives, does this actually work well? The last days there have been a few reports of problems with mapped drives, so maybe the FAQ can state that mapped drives take a little to (re)connect and as such files might appear grey until drive is reconnected.

My personal experience is that the full network path is more stable than a mapped drive. Windows seems to not always be able to maintain the connection thry the mapped drive.
surfer
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Post by surfer »

Anyway, how would you like it to be implemented?
Would you like to get a dialog to select the hard drive you want to change (the one that's now inaccessible because you already changed the hard drive/computer, or that is still accessible if you just added the other hard drive) to the new hard drive?
(dialog could contain some information like "drive letter", "volume label", "drive type", "file system" to be able to recognise the drives better)
Just to understand 100%.

I have 3 harddrives with music.

The reason of my initial posting was to be able to use copies of the same DB on the main PC and another one on the laptop, and especially to be able to use manually created playlists between PC and laptop.

(I know i could scan all files through the network/UNC paths but this works to slow and i want to use 2 copies of the DB.)

I'd like to copy the DB from the PC to the laptop, connect from the laptop to the 3 shares on the PC through drive letters(ín a way that the path to the files remains is the same), start MM and be able to use my playlists on the laptop. I could even use the same drive letters.
But to be able to change one or more of the drive letters would be even better.

An ideal script would be one that simply "accepts" if the drive letter(s) is(are) the same or lets you connect to another drive letter in some way if one of them changed.
Lowlander
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Post by Lowlander »

How many files and what time are you talking about when you say that scanning thru the network takes too long? Scanning time does depends on your settings. Scanning for duplicates while adding files really slows things down. Furthermore you could set to only update tags on files with changed timestamp. This would result that the first scan would take a while depending on your library size, but subsequential scans should be relatively fast (you could even setup the file monitor on the main PC to automate things).

Are all 3 music harddrives on the same main PC?

On another note why not share the DB as the music is on the main PC? That way you only have to scan once and it's also easier to maintain an up to date library (editing in 2 places could result in some inconsistencies).

I think hat using network/UNC path is the best way to go in your situation. It would certainly avoid the problems you currently have with mediaIDs.
surfer
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Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:55 am

Post by surfer »

the 3 drives are on 1 PC.

What i did not mention is....

i use the playlists in other programs as well, the most important is "traktor DJ studio".
I do not know what happens but the tracks take extremely long if loaded into traktor by playlists with UNC-network paths, but there is no problem when using network paths with drive letters.

Also browsing LIBRARY/LOCATIONs is evidently more sluggish through UNC paths than drive letters. I tried it all already and gave it up.
Lowlander
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Post by Lowlander »

Ok, I don't use the location node for network browsing, just locally. Maybe the developers can comment on this, because this should work equally fast.

I assume you export your playlists for use with Tracktor DJ Studio? You could create a modified version of the export to m3u playlist script that would modify the path to the mapped network drive/local drive letter instead of the UNC network path. That would only leave your problem of the slow location node.
surfer
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Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:55 am

Post by surfer »

My new PC is an XP, 1 GB RAM, Athlon64 3200+,all HDs are 7200.

The responce time between a klick in a location tree and actual opening/expanding is sluggish and much longer through UNC paths compared to drive letters.

I can export the playlists but i can also drag&drop the tracks from them into traktor.

A script like that would probably not be so easy to create because the tracks on the playlists are from 3 different drives.
Lowlander
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Post by Lowlander »

But there UNC paths would be different too. So I think it would be doable. But as you said it doesn't work for drag & drop.

I see the predicament your in. Drive letter support would help you out a lot.

You might want to check into networked attached storage like Ximeta which appears in Windows as a local drive. With the current system it doesn't matter which drive letter you assign it as it uses the drive ID. This also works rather fast. For me the Ximeta has worked very well over the past years I've used it.
gembrain
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Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:45 am

Post by gembrain »

Have been using Media Jukebox up until now. Moving to MM because I can share the library.

I have all my MP3's on my main computer. Laptop connects to shared drive 'M'.

When we go away I sync an external drive with a full copy of all music. On the laptop I disconnect the mapped drive 'M', attach the external drive which has the letter 'M' and off we go.

Not being able to use drive letters with MM is going to be a pain! :(
onkel_enno
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Post by onkel_enno »

In My Eyes the main reason for not using drive letters is the following (not sure if it's already mentioned):
Connect an external device with an usb port -> Driver letter F
Connect the same device with another port -> Driver Letter G (might happen)

Now MM detects that the same drive has now another driver letter -> all files are accessable.
Lowlander
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Post by Lowlander »

Your right onkel_enno and as an external drive user I must say that this works as a dream.

But seeing the problems people users have I think MediaMonkey needs to make this configurable. Maybe even per drive. This should be moved up high on the todo list.
surfer
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Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:55 am

Post by surfer »

onkel_enno is of course right.....but only for cases in which you use *the same* drive but for some reason have a different letter.

But MM does not offer a good solution for the other way round where you have different drives but the same letter (or different letters as well).

I started the topic initially having in mind the latter cases:

Code: Select all

I think using a drive letter is more helpful when changing the drives or computers and pointing to another location.
onkel_enno
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Post by onkel_enno »

Wouldn't a Script be a simple solution? The only thing it has to do is to change the Serial-Number in Table Medias. I could try to prepare that, if there is any interest :wink:
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