Filehosting for the Soundfont Project

• May 21, 2012 - 17:47

We are currently looking for filehosting space for the project.

My own webspace is only 2GB which is a fly on the wall compared to the space we need.

Ideally I would like to have a terabyte of storage at our disposal, but I realise that this is probably unrealistic in the short term.

Initially 10GB of filespace would be a big help so there is space to store a couple of soundfonts while they are being worked on, plus upload space for samples.

One thing we will desperately need is a compression system.

Conventional compression systems such as RAR and ZIP just don't hack it with audio data due to its complexity, and the use of MP3 or other lossy compressions results in a degraded sample, particularly at low bitrates - in the past I have been able to detect artifacts in the high frequency band of audio compressed to mp3 at 128kbps. (Whether I would now I don't know because my ears are getting decidedly old!)

I have had some success with FLAC in the past, but it doesn't seem to like 24 bit samples, so if anyone has knowledge of a better lossless compression system for audio, please shout!

I am intending to set up a dedicated ftp server for the project, but this will not be possible for a while as I am moving again, and it will be a month or three before I have got my life stable enough again to start implementing this.

Regards
Michael

Comments

• May 21, 2012 - 18:36

I want to help how I can, so let me tell you what I can possibly offer:

First, I have a NAS (MyBook World) that is more or less constantly on, as is my laptop, which generally stays at home since my iPad does most of what I'd need while away from home. So I could presumably set up an ftp server that way, if someone were to point me to suggestions on how to make that happen. I couldn't make any particular guarantees with regard to to uptime, but would imagine you'd have access 90% or more of the time, and there will easily be at least 100GB free for the next year or more.

I also have "unlimited" space available with a "pro" account with the service that hosts my web site (ipowerweb), and they have a better uptime record than I could offer myself. But the fine print of the service agreement speaks of the difference between unlimited and unreasonable, suggesting that space that is directly used for web site operations typical for a small business are fine, but one shouldn't take advantage of this as a general file sharing service, which I can certainly respect. They apparently run some metrics tracking file access, and if all accesses are coming via ftp servers as opposed to links within my site, they'd catch on. But their "basic" service level has a flat 5GB limit that is presumably no questions asked, and I am currently at only 1GB or so myself. I suspect if I wrote them and told them I wanted at least 15GB for a project that is directly connected to my business, they'd be OK with it.

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• May 22, 2012 - 18:38

In terms of your security webspace would be preferable, however, with a bit of fiddling a secure FTP server can be set up on your home system, served perhaps by a link from your website.

Presumably the NAS is connected to your laptop? Or is it directly connected to your home network?

If the latter then you will need to give it a static IP address within your own network, and setup the router to allow access.

It would be more secure through your laptop - what OS is it Marc? - as it would then be behind both the router's NAT firewall and your OS's.

Whatever route you decide you would need ftp server software to allow access - I've used the Filezilla server fairly successfully in the past, and also Cerberus which is supposed to have industrial strength encryption.

I have no experience at all of setting up ftp servers on Macs, so if you are running a Mac then someone else will need to dive in with the technical details.

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• May 22, 2012 - 20:56

I think you are making things more complicated that they can be by willing to setup an FTP server, NAS, NAT, Firewall and tutti quanti. There are a lot of free (ad based) space available online. Why not using it?
I already talked about minus.com, but you have also mediafire.com, 4shared etc...

And if we are talking about sound, and moreover free sounds, then http://www.freesound.org/ is the perfect place to upload them. If sounds are in a "pack", they can be downloaded at once.

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• May 22, 2012 - 21:55

Setting up an FTP server on my own laptop may indeed be more trouble than I care to go through right now if there are better alternatives, but there is already an FTP server on my web site, so it would just be a matter of creating a new user account, which would take all of a minute. But as mentioned, we'd be on slightly thin ice. So if one of those hosting services works as well, so much the better.

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• May 22, 2012 - 23:02

The only problem with the free space is that as far as I can see none of it is suitable for cloud computing - it all seems to be geared up for 1 person sharing files with xxx number of people, not several people all uploading and downloading to the same file space, and those that are like Google Docs have a pitifully small space allocation.

There is mention of other users uploading to your filespace on mediafire, but I think it costs.

Also most of them have filesize limits - minus.com has a 2MB limit per file on their free option, that isn't even a drop in the bucket when we're talking uploading raw uncompressed audio.

What we require is space along the lines of SourceForge where all those involved in the project have upload and download access to the space, depending on privileges.

I haven't had time to look at mediafire properly yet, but will do so this weekend., problem is they hide the real information you want to know away so you can get sucked in without really knowing what you're signing up for.

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• May 24, 2012 - 11:29

Well, I had an unexpected clear day yesterday so I was able to investigate Mediafire a little more.

It seems that it will provide what we require for $9 a month, the free account has a 200MB limit on filesize which is OK, but only 1 user can upload to the account.

I have managed to find what we require at FileFactory.com, and have set up an account there

I will circulate login details etc as soon as I have them.

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• Feb 23, 2013 - 07:57

DepositFiles create a new service called DepositStorage (5 GB of free disk space and no restrictions for downloading files).

There is NO LIMIT to the number of downloads, timers and etc. No restrictions on download speed both for you and for those, whom you want to share your files with.

You can share any file in your DepositStorage. Generated file links can then be sent to anyone (even non-users) for viewing and Password-Protected option! -- 5 GB (Free!) or
Upgrade to 150 GB ($11.95 per month) ; 300 GB ($19.95 per month) ; 750 GB ($44.95 per month)

Re-quote : "Ideally I would like to have a terabyte of storage at our disposal, ..."
I think that more than 1TB storage is now possible with 2x Depositstorage @ 750 GB ?

More info at http://pinterest.com/depositfiles/

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