Question about recording MP3s from line input

[Muse]

I have done this for years:

I record FM broadcasts by taking line-out from my AV receiver, plug that into the soundcard on my PC and use software that has scheduling to record specific programs. The software is Total Recorder Standard Edition (~$20). The software does a good job. I have a USB soundcard attached to a laptop, which is awakened from sleep when a recording is to begin and goes back to sleep when the recording is done, the recording software automatically does this. The receiver is plugged into a digital timer, that I program separately from the laptop so that it's on when a recording needs to be made and is turned off after the recording finishes.

The software has a Save-to directory and also a directory for temp files, which it uses while a recording is in progress. I save to my NAS, which has RAID1 disk mirroring. I used to save to a USB hard drive attached to the laptop, but have had failures doing that (losing a ton of data!), I like the NAS idea better with its mirroring.

Now, my concern if that I don't want to wear out the NAS's HDs, that the less writing to its disks the better. I figure it's fine for storage of the final MP3, but that it's probably smarter to have the temp directory elsewhere, i.e. either the laptop's HD or something attached to it, either a USB hard drive or a flash drive. I just attached an old 2GB flash drive to the laptop and have a recording going using a folder on it for the temp directory. The final MP3's are anywhere from 30MB to 175MB (about 1MB/minute and my recordings are hardly ever more than 3 hours), so I figure the contents of the temp directory should not be much more than those.

So, my question is, what will last longer, be more reliable? Is using a flash drive for the temp directory asking too much from that technology? IOW, will it wear out and break down faster than a HD would?

 

[JAG87]

This is a ridiculously complex contrivance... does your radio station broadcast over the internet? If so it may be A LOT simpler to record your program.

But to answer your question, yes, NAND storage has a limited life, MLC is worse than SLC, and flash drives have practically no wear levelling technology to speak of. So your USB stick will fail after a few years.

An HDD has basically infinite life, until the mechanical part of it fails. Of course there are other things can fail in an HDD (like the controller), but that's really rare in comparison. To be honest, I think you are making an issue out of something that isn't. Your NAS is the safest place to store your recordings, and HDDs do not suffer from constantly reading or writing data. What breaks HDDs the most is either spinning up or down too often (as in way too often, not once a day), or physical shock.

 

[Muse]

This is a ridiculously complex contrivance... does your radio station broadcast over the internet? If so it may be A LOT simpler to record your program.

But to answer your question, yes, NAND storage has a limited life, MLC is worse than SLC, and flash drives have practically no wear levelling technology to speak of. So your USB stick will fail after a few years.

An HDD has basically infinite life, until the mechanical part of it fails. Of course there are other things can fail in an HDD (like the controller), but that's really rare in comparison. To be honest, I think you are making an issue out of something that isn't. Your NAS is the safest place to store your recordings, and HDDs do not suffer from constantly reading or writing data. What breaks HDDs the most is either spinning up or down too often (as in way too often, not once a day), or physical shock.

I believe that the 2 WD 3TB Red HDs in the NAS do spin up/down many many times/day. I come into the room and 1/2 the time the NAS is asleep and 1/2 the time it's active, I don't know why it wakes up. Of course, if I access it from a computer either by reading or writing data or just bringing it up in Explorer, then it kicks into life if it isn't active already.

I'm just wondering how much wear having the temp folder on the NAS is causing. You know, if the flash drive lasts a few years before it fails it might be a reasonable option. It's only 2GB and I have several larger flash drives, including three 16GB ones. It was just sitting around, I haven't used it in probably 2 to 3 years.

It may seem ridiculous what I'm doing here with a timer, a receiver set up like this, but I think it is far more reliable than recording the station's internet stream. Unless they've improved things a lot, the streams aren't very reliable. Also, I'd have to upgrade from the Standard Edition of Total Recorder to the Professional Edition to record internet streams. Not a big deal, it would cost me $18 to upgrade. Or, I could use another method of recording internet streams, I haven't looked into that. Total Recorder is pretty full featured, however. I can schedule one time events, weekly recordings, edit tags ahead of time, record in a variety of formats, plus the customer support is decent. I can send them emails and get a personal email response, have done so many times. Also, once you buy an edition, you are entitled to upgrades in perpetuity free.