Networkable CD Jukebox Recommendations

[zodraz]

Anybody have any first-hand knowledge of such devices?

My company's capitol requests are due and I'd like to make a pitch for one.

I got a ProCom CD tower a few years back. What a piece of junk!    

I want a 50 CD capacity minimum.

Thanks!

[kelly]

Don't know anything about them. Here's a start.  

http://www.macworld.com/2000/11/27/reviews.../powerfile.html

http://www.dvdjukebox.com/Products/Studio/...udioHWdesc.html

http://www.dvdjukebox.com/

[themphill]

I was asked similar advice a number of year back by the school district for which I was a volunteer advisor. My advice at the time was "don't waste your money." They took my advice, and seem to be happy with their decision today.

If you have a lot of data to serve, it makes more sense to serve it from a real network server with a lot of disk space. That way you aren't tied to a certain disk format and a proprietary serving system which could quickly become obsolete.

I recently retired an optical disk jukebox system which had met such a fate.

Network attached storage devices (like the Snap Server) seem to me to be a poor long-term investment for the same reasons.

[zodraz]

Thanks Kelly,

I'll check them out.

I hope somebody might still write-in with a "real-world" reccomendation.

Themphill, the my short answer is YES we need one.

I have 15 -20 CDs loaded with stock photos that need to be shared among 4 designers. As well as an archive library of 20-30 CDs of past projects, templates and original art. The CD server would keep those darn disks from getting lost. Yeah, it'd be nice if we had a "check-out" system on paper, but this is the real world with "on-fire" emergencies", and over-worked staff that would have no desire to do it.

The ProCom unit I bought, on paper "sounded" like a dream come true! An ATX case with a proprietary motherboard with network card and OS that had an 8GB ATA drive with a 5 Disk Nakamichi CD drive. It  was able to be administrated via it's small LED dispaly built in the case, or by a Windows based software, or by FTP Client or via any internet browser.

They way it worked is that you would "feed" the CDs into the machine which would create "virtual CD" copies on it's hard drive. You then could remove the real CDs and store them!

Well in practice it was a disaster. The machine at first would not support AppleTalk. Then after MONTHS of idle time that was resloved. Then Mac CDs "virtualized" lost all the "Desktop" info - all the files were generic, AND truncated to 8 characters - USELESS! A new "OS" was installed which almost fixed it, just a few "invisible" files show up, otherwise it does function.

Administering was a royal PAIN! Via browser it was slow and tortureous! And then I discovered that the 5 Slot drive could not share the CDs in it. So that meant I could store about 10 CDs on it!  And according to ProCom the ATA drive is NOT expandable.

Ahhhh I feel better now after that rant!

[themphill]

Sorry you got burned by your previous "solution."

You may want to consider storing your stock art on a large shared volume so it's quickly available. A tape system (DLT or AIT if you can afford it) along with Dantz Retrospect is a good way to archive old projects. If your filing method is well organized it should be a snap for artists to retrieve exactly what they need.

At a busy prepress shop where I worked, we went to such a system and saved countless hours over the previous method of using optical disks and CDs.

[zodraz]

Thanks themphill,

Problem is our Proliant server has only I slot left to fill for storage. And since it's RAID it can only be a Compaq 20GB drive.

I suppose I could get an expansion chassis, but it seems like a lot of work which no one here can do. We are a small "island" of Macs in a sea of PCs here. Tech support is officially non-existant ("we don't support Macs'). I've gotten (and kept) what we have because I've kept a low profile and tried to build relationships with some of the IT folks. A lot of them have told me "yeah, I used to work on Macs, but I don't know them now".

Anyways, the servers are THEIR DOMAIN, and any request that entails "Windows" working environments gets you the standard "vanilla" choice. I feel sorry for our "web team" that can't get a 19" monitor because all windows machines can (at best) get a 17". Their PCs are "X-Box" sized Compaqs with no ZIP or Writeable CD drives! But since we are "off-the-chart" we have 21" cinema displays and G4s with superdrives.

Actually the PowerFile might be an angle for me to work to get a new G4 since that device needs a "host" to fileshare and network.    

I don't ask for computers, I ask for Graphics Assembly Workstations.