this leads to another question on the Beosound 5:

Will it be usable if the HDD fails? I mean: Does the controller work or is the Firmware etc. installed on the harddrive? If yes this would be a very dumb construction ... ;-)

Russ wrote:

Hi TWG,

The 3200 ought to work just fine without the HDD,

 

I need to be persuaded that this is actually true.

Will the BS3200 go through it's initialisation at switch on with a failed HDD?

Maybe, maybe not. Can you comment Keith Saunders??

TWG wrote:

this leads to another question on the Beosound 5:

Will it be usable if the HDD fails? I mean: Does the controller work or is the Firmware etc. installed on the harddrive? If yes this would be a very dumb construction ... ;-)

Ahh... that's the crux of the question, isn't it?

From trolling this forum for over one year, it seems that no one who knows for a fact has made a definitive statement, but every time the subject comes up, someone says that just replacing the disk on a BS3200 won't do.

If true this means that the replacement disk has to be blessed (minimum) or even worse, loaded up with B&O software/firmware.  Poor choice from a systems survival standpoint, unless £750 each time is part of the budget!

750 euro is just a small part of the problem, IMO. Think about the time it will cost, ripping 400 cd's again to your new harddisk, in real-time.😜

Well here's what I have done and will do:-

First and prior to the arrival of my BS5, I recorded ll my music onto 2 x 320Gb Freecom Toughdrives. One kept on my desk, onein a safe.

The BM5 then "backed-up" on of the 320gb drives.

That has cost me approx GBP120 to have a double back-up of all my current music - +600 CD's ripped in WMA lossless and representing a several hundred hours of my time ripping. Well worth it I would say?

Second,  I will shortly be looking to see if I can back-up using the whole BM5 image using Acronis. However, B&O have a pen-drive tool kit that will enable full mirroring - available to dealers. I will be enquiring to see if this can become available. If not, then the second the unit goes out of warrenty, I will rip the HDD from the BM5 and image it off the BM5.

I can't see it being any more dificult than that.

10%

I've asked my dealer to swap the hard drive for SSD card.

This is a no go.

joeyboygolf wrote:

Russ wrote:

Hi TWG,

The 3200 ought to work just fine without the HDD,

 

I need to be persuaded that this is actually true.

Will the BS3200 go through it's initialisation at switch on with a failed HDD?

Maybe, maybe not. Can you comment Keith Saunders??

Given the 3200's lineage, I can't imagine that there would be a problem.  Any more than if the Cassette deck failed in an Overture.  Rememer that the 3200 isn't based on the HDD, that is a featured accessory.

Perhaps not the definitive answer you're looking for; but unless we hear from a service center, or someone on the Farm, I don't know that you'll get one.

Mr10Percent wrote:

Well here's what I have done and will do:-

First and prior to the arrival of my BS5, I recorded ll my music onto 2 x 320Gb Freecom Toughdrives. One kept on my desk, onein a safe.

The BM5 then "backed-up" on of the 320gb drives.

That has cost me approx GBP120 to have a double back-up of all my current music - +600 CD's ripped in WMA lossless and representing a several hundred hours of my time ripping. Well worth it I would say?

Second,  I will shortly be looking to see if I can back-up using the whole BM5 image using Acronis. However, B&O have a pen-drive tool kit that will enable full mirroring - available to dealers. I will be enquiring to see if this can become available. If not, then the second the unit goes out of warrenty, I will rip the HDD from the BM5 and image it off the BM5.

I can't see it being any more dificult than that.

 

10%

 

While you have been (wisely) very cautious, the method doesn't really lend itself to ease of maintenance (adding new music etc). I feel that B&O have maybe missed an opportunity to add and promote a transparent back up feature for the BM5 data such that single system failures are recoverable. This may have gone some way to ease the fears of technophobes who may consider this their ideal digital music player but have heard of such crashes and data loss.

Not a show stopper of course but would have demonstrated an appreciation of the time/effort invested in assembling the archive by taking the responsibility away from the user.

I hate to seem thick...but won't most customers for BM-5 have their complete music library on the administrating computer?  Wouldn't this level of paranoia dictate that you have a backup of that HDD already?  So, given that BM-5 is at worst a sub-set of an existing library, isn't a 2nd or 3rd back-up awfully, awfully paranoid?

Russ

There was much talk early on of this being the digital music system for the computer-phobic, maybe slightly elder B&O owner (not wishing to sound ageist), and that your CD collection could be installed in the BM5 by third parties etc.

You are right - most will, but not all. My parents would likely be capable of operating the BS5 but wouldn't have a clue if they had to administer the music collection.

As I said, not a big point but could have been a selling point.