Sorting out a collection of 1750 "albums"

[DavidHB]

I don't use JRiver, so cannot comment on it. But it is paid software, whereas MP3Tag is donationware.

MP3Tag has a good undo feature, though I think (subject to correction) that it relates to the last action only. It also has a more conventional search and replace function, albeit without wild cards; the latter are handled comprehensively by regular expressions which are enormously powerful but can be a bit of a brain teaser. Something I like about MP3Tag is its ability to display all the files in a folder and sub-folders (i.e recursively) in its editing grid. Taken in conjunction with powerful filtering capabilities, this enables you to review and edit a large number of files simultaneously, and ensure (for instance) that you have consistent spelling of composer and artist names and the like.

Coming back to the points made by Simon (with which I agree), I wonder whether you or your dealer have considered the question of backup? Sooner or later the drive(s) on your QNAP will fail. While it is possible, if the QNAP has two or more drives, that you have a recovery-enabled RAID array (your dealer should know), few IT professionals I know would rely on this as an alternative to a proper backup.

If you make a backup mirror image of your music folder (e.g. on a USB drive attached to your Mac), you can use that to do the initial file reorganisation and tagging. You can even install a separate instance of MinimServer on your Mac to access the 'work in progress' and check out your tagging before you copy edited material over to the QNAP. This is basically my own normal method of working, and, while it adds a few more steps to each batch of changes, it does help you keep track of things, and to back-track if you make a complete mess of something.

David