ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

[A_bad_start]

just learning about this stuff, started ripping CDs and within several CDs started getting lots of read errors to the point where the CD drive in my desktop died... dead. I recall reading somewhere else that this stuff makes the drives work hard? is that true? I'm not too bothered, I have the other drive touse, but I just want to be prepared as I have about 200 CDs to get through yet.

[garym]

Re: ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

just learning about this stuff, started ripping CDs and within several CDs started getting lots of read errors to the point where the CD drive in my desktop died... dead. I recall reading somewhere else that this stuff makes the drives work hard? is that true? I'm not too bothered, I have the other drive touse, but I just want to be prepared as I have about 200 CDs to get through yet.

Can be hard I've read, but I've certainly ripped thousands of CDs on drives that continue to work.

[A_bad_start]

Re: ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

ok, the drive must have just been on its way out. no big deal.
I suppose I'm just checking that people arent taking some extra steps with hardware or some other detail that I needed to be aware of. The hardware is the easy bit, I'm more concerned that I get all my rip settings correct. I can just see me getting half way through my collection and realising that I should have been doing something differently. that would annoy me.

[Porcus]

Re: ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

ok, the drive must have just been on its way out.

It happens. In 7000 CDs I wore out out a drive and a DVD changer, both purchased second-hand. Secure ripping with re-reading etc., does stress the drive a bit. I set the settings to abort fairly quickly for the DVD changers, and resorted to ripping the troublemakers in other (cheaper, but not cheap) drives. Should another of those go down the drain ... well, that is what they are there for.

I'm more concerned that I get all my rip settings correct. I can just see me getting half way through my collection and realising that I should have been doing something differently. that would annoy me.

Agree. There are a couple of things I do regret:
- One of them is using the HDCD DSP. (On ripping to lossless, it can be done afterwards.)
- Another is that I didn't check the discs for what releases they are. If I were to do this once again, I would take anything that looks like a remaster out in a second pile, and tag them thoroughly with original year and this version's year.

Also, be sure to log as much as possible.

[Mike48]

Re: ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

A disc with a little crack in it, or anything else that makes it irregular, can be very hard on the drive. After one such exploded in my computer's DVD drive, I replaced that drive, and so that I wouldn't have to open the cabinet again, I got a cheap external drive to use for ripping. I've ripped 924 CDs so far, with only that one incident.

Another reason to have 2 functioning drives is that when a track fails secure ripping on one drive, it often will work on the other.

[Porcus]

Re: ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

external

Beware that USB (or firewire, if anyone but me still uses that) bridges may mess up the C2 error information. So if external --> eSATA is safest.

[bhoar]

Re: ripping to FLAC, is it hard on CD readers?

Beware that USB (or firewire, if anyone but me still uses that) bridges may mess up the C2 error information. So if external --> eSATA is safest.

The key point is "may" mess up C2. It might work fine as well. It depends mostly on the USB<->(S)ATA bridge chipset, but can also depend upon the drive, the OS USB storage drivers and the program trying to use them. I always enable the 8KB option in the dbpoweramp options, just in case something along the datapath makes incorrect assumptions about the data and/or buffer sizes.

Brendan