It's A Digital Disease!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Born_Night_8797 on 2025-07-21 17:59:47.

I am looking to buy an internal HDD, and will buy convertor to convert it into external and use it to store my lectures/ study materials/ pictures etc. These are my questions:

1. Seagate/ WD or toshiba?
2. Should I go for 2.5 inch (laptop onces) or the fatter desktop ones? The fatter onces need converters with adaptors whose price is almost 75% od the used HDD itself in my country. No issues though, need a reliable long running HDD.

if I go for 2.5inch laptop ones, I have the converter already at home.

So friends, which ones should I go for? Please help me out.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Aware-Classroom7510 on 2025-07-21 17:20:16.

Followed this guy for awhile cuz of his gaming dev hardware, I don't have any reds on hand to check for myself

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/IEatLintFromTheDryer on 2025-07-21 17:00:48.

A seller on eBay sells data center disks (Toshiba MG07ACA14TE) 14 tb drives for 125€ each. Each disk was started and stopped less than 20 times, ran constantly for 48k to 50k hrs. The seller provides a printed out health check up for each disk and guarantees that the disk is 100% healthy, no bad sectors etc. Is it advisable to buy a few disks for my home set up?

Since I can not let my pc run 24/7, the drives will be turned on and off again twice daily. 14tb drives cost around 280€ around me new. Thanks for your advice

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/isaakwit on 2025-07-21 16:30:08.

Dear Data Hoarders, I need your advice:

I spent the last year stitching together 2 data servers. Each of them consists of a Raspberry 5 and 5x5TB of old ext4 HDDs. All of those 5 HDDs were mounted with a cheap HDD-Bay. I put each server with all of the cables in some Tupperware, drilled some holes in the sides, screwed a PC-Fan on top and called them "arctica" and "antarctica". It was lovely. Then something unexpected happend: I moved in with someone. This someone also has a child. My whole life configuration changed, and after the dust had settled I realised that I won't be able to employ this setup any more. It felt way too hacky anyways.

So, now it is time for change. Since I am not using the raspberries any more I am pretty much left with 10x5TB of ext4 HDDs. I remember the pain I went through converting them all from NTFS. All of them were full, so I had to copy all of them before converting. Lost some data along the way.

I need them connected to a windows machine now. Fuck.

I am familiar with "Paragon Linux File Systems for Windows" and Ubuntu Subsystem on WIndows 11. They do not do their jobs as I need it. I need them as drives connected to my machine.

I would be terribly greatful for any advice.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Mashic on 2025-07-21 16:14:46.

There is a website that has been running for +20 years, it also has a forum under a subdomain. There are still new articles and forum posts here and there. I want to archive the website with its forum, then maybe run a cronjob to download new content. Is there such a tool that does this job?

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/XxNerdAtHeartxX on 2025-07-21 15:09:40.

Ive been looking at archiving physical books which never got a digital release for a while, but also trying to minimize work for maximum quality (ideally without destroying the book).

I have a really nice studio setup for photography including 3 flashes, lenses, and a 61mp camera body, so Im thinking of how I could leverage that for this purpose.

Taking pictures of all the pages is 'the easy part', but Im hoping non-proprietary software exists that can take bulk images of pages, apply page curvature, auto crop to the size of the book, and similar corrections.

(by non proprietary, I mean I can use it with any image and not just images from their specific book scanners)

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Enough_Substance9750 on 2025-07-21 11:04:06.

Hi Guys

My old 14TB External (Had it for a few years) I use mainly for Retro Game files is nearly full, so data can be redownloaded I suppose if it ever did fail, looking for something around 20TB now to run along side it, something on a budget, so an Amazon UK job would be fine, what do you recommend ? Thanks

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/StarShipYear on 2025-07-21 10:48:25.

I have about 4TB files, mainly photos and 4k video. This number will increase considerably over the next few years as I upgraded my camera, file sizes are larger, and I'm taking more video. I also have iCloud that I want to extract and store myself, and loads of documents that need organised.

I suppose I've gone down a typical route: stored files my computer > started storing on SSDs > number of SSDs has built up and has become difficult to manage > explored idea of transferring everything over to HDDs and into cold storage > explored using a DAS. Now I have ended up looking at NAS.

NAS wasn't all that appealing to me, as first and foremost I simply want to protect my files. However being able to connect to my files remotely has become super appealing, particularly as I should be able to edit video on the go without carrying the files with me.

I know nothing about these setups, so looked into it over the weekend and have come to this potential setup:

NAS: Synology DS923+ (4-bay)

• 2× Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS HDD (CMR, ST8000VNZ02)
  • Raid 1 Configuration
• 1x Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS HDD as external storage to backup Raid

Add ons (will likely add down the line...)

• 10 GbE Upgrade: Synology E10G22-T1-Mini network card
• 1× WD Black SN850X 1TB NVMe SSD (read cache)
• Another x2 8TB in the leftover bays + x1 8TB external backup
• UPS: CyberPower Value Pro 1000VA (not sure if I need this? Would appreciate advice. I'm in the UK if that means anything in terms of my electricity supply)
• Hardware firewall of some sort (again not sure about this one)

Additional Info

• I have an old MacBook Pro M1 in my home office which I can permanently connect to the NAS
• I use a MacBook Air M3 to travel and work around the house.

Initially I wasn't keen on Synology, even more after reading about the issues around HDDs. However I've ended up back there again because their software seems good and I can't find any good alternatives that offer the same.

I have explored UGreen, Terramaster, OWC. Also looked into building my own NAS. All of these have their pros, but I like simplicity. Another thing is that since I'm new to all this, I'm concerned that I risk making mistakes by unknowingly doing something wrong as I manage my files.

Before this weekend I knew absolutely ZERO about DAS, NAS, etc. So this is where I'm at with it.

This sub is amazing for the experience and advice. Could you please offer me your opinion on this setup? Does it all add up? Is it overkill or not enough? I'm trying to figure out if there is some gap somewhere.

Thank you!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/nomnomnomnomRABIES on 2025-07-21 10:39:01.

Say, a finalised, written to bdr?

ie would it be physically possible for the burning laser to screw up the disc once it has been written, or if there is something that makes the disc "inert" after it has been written once.

If it could (theoretically) do this then I would also be interested to know if the "wrong" burning laser could also do so: eg could a red dvdr/cdr laser damage a bdr or a Blu-ray laser damage a CDR/dvdr?

No wish to actually it and I am not suggesting it has actually happened, I am just curious as to whether the protection is actual physical impossibility or if it is deep-level software that stops this.

The only info I could find googling was this link, https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/4202490257582613181/ but they are coming from a data disposal angle and just keep saying that it would be easier to just put this disc in the microwave etc (which a remote hacker to an optical disc NAS probably could not do...)

Edit: damn autocorrect adding a stray apostrophe to title Edit it: thanks for cool replies :-) a follow up question: would the laser from a read only drive be capable of damaging the data on a previously written cd, dvd, bdr (if hacked at deep level firmware etc)

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/kahn2k on 2025-07-21 08:41:14.

Hi all,

I've just bought a used HP Ultrium 15000 LTO-7 internal drive and tried to connect it with my new LSI 9500-8i HBA card. However, the drive booted up with error in the Power-On-Self-Test with blinking orange on the DRIVE and TAPE LED.

So I'm wondering if my LSI 9500-8i card is compatible with the drive? Asked the question on ChatGPT and it says the 9500-8i card might not have the full set of SCSI commands and is not compatible with the TAPE drive.

I've ran the Storcli command on the card and this is the output:

CLI Version = 007.3404.0000.0000 April 18, 2025
Operating system = Windows 11
Controller = 0
Status = Success
Description = None

Basics :
======
Controller = 0
Adapter Type =   SAS3808(A0)
Model = HBA 9500-8i
Serial Number = SPC********
Current System Date/time = 07/19/2025 19:01:14
Concurrent commands supported = 5248
SAS Address =  5000***********
PCI Address = 00:17:00:00

Version :
=======
Firmware Package Build = 21.00.00.00
Firmware Version = 21.00.00.00
Bios Version = 09.41.00.00_21.00.00.00
NVDATA Version = 21.00.00.09
Driver Name = ItSas35
Driver Version = 2.61.79.00

PCI Version :
===========
Vendor Id = 0x1000
Device Id = 0xE6
SubVendor Id = 0x1000
SubDevice Id = 0x4060
Host Interface = PCIE
Device Interface = SAS-12G
Bus Number = 23
Device Number = 0
Function Number = 0
Domain ID = 0

Pending Images in Flash :
=======================
Image name = No pending images

Status :
======
Controller has booted into certificate provision mode = No
Package Stamp Mismatch = No

Supported Adapter Operations :
============================
Support more than 8 Phys = Yes
Support Enclosure Enumeration = Yes
Support Allowed Operations = Yes
Support Multipath = Yes
Support Security = Yes
support EKM = No
Support Secure Boot = Yes
Support Platform Security = No
Support Package Stamp Mismatch Reporting = Yes
Support PSOC Update = No
Support PSOC Part Information = No
Support PSOC Version Information = No

Supported PD Operations :
=======================
Support Physical Link Speed = Yes

HwCfg :
=====
ChipRevision =  A0
BatteryFRU = N/A
Front End Port Count = 1
Backend Port Count = 11
Serial Debugger = Absent
NVRAM Size = 0KB
Flash Size = 16MB
Temperature Sensor for ROC = Present
Temperature Sensor for Controller = Absent
ROC temperature(Degree Celsius) = 55

Boot :
====
Max Drives to Spinup at One Time = 2
Maximum number of direct attached drives to spin up in 1 min = 60
Delay Among Spinup Groups (sec) = 2

Capabilities :
============
Supported Drives = SAS, SATA, NVMe
Enable JBOD = Yes
Max Parallel Commands = 5248
Max SGE Count = 128
Max Data Transfer Size = 32 sectors

Secure Boot :
===========
Secure Boot Enabled = Yes
Controller in Soft Secure Mode = No
Controller in Hard Secure Mode = Yes
Key Update Pending = No
Remaining Secure Boot Key Slots = 7

Security Protocol properties :
============================
Security Protocol = None

Enclosure Information :
=====================

------------------------------------------------------------------
EID State Slots PD PS Fans TSs Alms SIM ProdID     VendorSpecific
------------------------------------------------------------------
  0 OK        8  1  0    0   0    0   0 VirtualSES
------------------------------------------------------------------

Physical Device Information :
===========================

Tape Drive /c0/e0/s4 :
====================
Device Id = 1
Slot No = 4
SCSI Device Type = Tape
SAS address = 0x5005*********
Interface Type = SAS
Link Speed = 6.0Gb/s
Manufacturer Id = HP
Model Number = Ultrium 7-SCSI
SN = 9*********
Firmware Revision = Q387
State = JBOD
Inquiry Data =
01 80 06 12 41 01 10 02 48 50 20 20 20 20 20 20
55 6c 74 72 69 75 6d 20 37 2d 53 43 53 49 20 20
51 33 38 37 00 00 6a 00 01 6c 02 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 a2 0c 28 04 60
05 20 0a 28 05 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Is there anything wrong with the HBA card or I've just been sold a defective TAPE drive.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/gunnarrt on 2025-07-21 08:30:20.

Hi,

I want to graband store a bunch of videos thats supposed to get removed at years end on boon(dot)tv.

Would really appreciate some guidance from all of you.

Thank you

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/RoadBump2016 on 2025-07-21 07:21:42.

I have a home media server with a ragtag collection of external drives. Capacity is starting to run low and some of the drives are showing their age. I'd like to consolidate sensibly and economically. At the moment these are my external drives (all connected via USB):

| Device | Total Size | Used | Available | Usage % | Notes | |

|

|

|

|

|

| | /dev/sdb | 3.6T | 3.0T | 508G | 86% | media | | /dev/sdc | 2.7T | 1.1T | 1.5T | 44% | media | | /dev/sdd | 4.6T | 4.0T | 295G | 94% | media | | /dev/sde | ? | ? | 1T | ? | Not mounted; very old drive - should be copied to backup and discarded | | /dev/sdf | 11T | 9.0T | 1.4T | 87% | current backup drive |

I got sdf five years ago (it's a Western Digital 'elements' external drive). and I back up to it using backintime from the other mounted drives. I'm wondering about:

1. Get new external drive
2. Copy current backups to new drive
3. Repurpose backup as primary
4. Put old primary drives in cold storage

This might be a bit fiddly for the repurposing using backintime and keeping the mount paths for jellyfin but Jellyfin consistency isn't 100% critical. This strategy would suggest to me that I should look at an 18TB drive or greater for it to be worthwhile.

Is this sensible? Are there any particular recommendations or places I should look?

Thanks!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Competitive_Hand_160 on 2025-07-21 07:09:40.

So I’m probably crazy, but hear me out… I have a unique situation, I spend 6- 10 months a year in remote locations where I can’t upload to my NAS. So I’m trying to find a m2 ssd or even a sata ssd enclosure that will handle traveling around the globe to remote research stations. I’m open to using hdds but I’m worried how reliable they are going to be since they will get moved across the globe a few times a year including air, and sea travel.

Ideally this enclosure would have 4 to 6 bays, be small enough to pack easily, have thunderbolt 3 or 4 and single drive redundancy. Oh, and if like to stay under 1,000$ 🤣 is this even possible?

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/ThePeoplessChamp on 2025-07-21 06:52:32.

Hello,

I have 10x 900 MB family videos in VOB format (I know nothing about this format) after having them previously digitized from VHS by a service.

I bought some 25GB Verbatim M-discs and an M-disc compatible Verbatim UHD slimline Blu-ray writer. I want to burn the video files onto a disc for archival purposes.

The player came with Nero Burn & Archive but I'm reading a lot of praise for ImgBurn. All I want to do is copy the files onto a single disc. It would be cool to make each file selectable in a menu or something. Nothing fancy

I only just discovered the files were VOB format. Is this workable or should I convert to something common like MP4?

Thanks

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/MisakaMisakaS100 on 2025-07-21 06:21:33.

I have 2 hard drives with the same content and size. But after a few days later I open drivepool, it shows the 2 harddrive not consistent. 2 of the folder contents do not match. So I compared the folder for both drives and their size are different.

1. How does this happen?

2. Does this mean I have corrupted files?

3. Does smaller size of files indicate corruption?

4. Is this normal?

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/PeeDieOlsen on 2025-07-21 05:47:19.

So I'm looking to buy the WD - D10 8TB External USB 3.2 Gen 1 Portable Hard Drive - Black from Best buy, it's apparently 80 bucks off right now. I've tried looking elsewhere and it's about the same price on other sites. So I wanted to ask if anyone has seen it drop lower of if this is a good enough deal. Thanks in advance!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/raidenorsnake on 2025-07-21 03:49:05.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Elfi on 2025-07-21 03:40:32.

Hello ! I have a 2 scenarios in my head that would involve creating a raid array over multiple partions across multiple disk and am wondering what would be the cons of theses solutions, would that be useful, efficient and/or secure ? And if it would cause a significant performance hit

Scenario 1

• I've heard that the OS can't be inside the raid array, so imagine I have 6x1 To, and that I wish to have a decent disk size for the storage. It would mean sacrificing 1 disk to get 5x1To and have 4To of usable storage on the raid with the possibility of 1 disk failure.

If I decide to partions my 6 disks into 12 partition of 500Go, it would means I'd have 500Go for the Os (which is sufficient) and 11x500Go for the raid array, with Raid 6 I could get 4.5 To of usable space instead of 4, with a tolerance of 2 partitions failure (= 1 full disk)

Scenario 2

• let's say I don't have to deal with the OS, if now I want a reliable array that could withstand 1 drive failure and even a failure of the raid itself (corruption, human error...) I would need back up of my datas.

So imagine I have 4x2To, if I decide to partions the disks into 8x1To I can make 2 raid array of 4x1To (with each disk having a partition from both array) this way I would have 2 raid of 3To across 4 disks of 2To with one of the raid array being a back up of the other one.

This way if one disk fail, both raid array would remain functional and if one of the array become compromised, the other one would still be accessible. In this setup even if a disk an array fail at the same time, the other would still work

Thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to your opinion!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Worth-Beautiful-1469 on 2025-07-21 03:34:36.

I understand the idea but at the end of the day. There are tons of things that are not actual guns that will be damaged here. I’m part of the nerf community we all modify nerf blasters to make them more powerful and more reliable. We also create blasters from scratch. There are 1000’s of file sets that will be lost here. There is a new page called blasterdownloads.com. I have new personal stake in it but I know it’s just for foam blasters. Is there a way to move them there or somewhere and save all these files. I’m new to this thread so any help would be greatly appreciated

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Spektre99 on 2025-07-21 03:25:52.

Does either Windows Storage Spaces mirroring or Windows volume mirroring provide a read speed increase?

I just tried volume mirroring expecting to see a read speed increase and saw no improvement over a single drive.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/ansyhrrian on 2025-07-20 22:02:51.

I finally bit the bullet on my Synology DS918+ and swapped out my trusty 5-year-old 4x 6TB Toshiba N300 NAS drives for 4x 18TB WD Red Pro drives on volume 1 (RAID 5).

While volume optimization is humming along nicely, my parallel decision to upgrade from DSM 6.x to DSM 7.1 has been … a choice. It’s not terrible, but, frankly, reconfiguration just sucks. I have a lot of containers, which makes it easier, but it’s still having to remember or re-import the customizations I’ve made over the years.

For backups and cold storage, I’ve got a DX517 expansion unit with 5x 8TB Seagate ST8000 SMR drives in RAID 5, slated for semi-cold storage duties. I also have a Cenmate USB 3.0 enclosure filled with my leftover 6TB drives (3 reformatted Toshibas and a newer WD Red Plus) running without RAID for ad-hoc local copy and mid-term non-critical hot-swappable storage when needed.

My super-cold backup solution is a vintage 2015 Seagate business NAS with 4x 8TB WD consumer-grade SMRs in two RAID 0 volumes, network-connected over gigabit Ethernet. It’s going to my neighbor when new backups are complete.

Anyways, I guess I’m not looking for advice per se, but I wouldn’t mind if you’d like to share experience, pain or guidance if you’d like. It’s been a weekend of “fun” rebuilding and optimizing volumes, switching out drives and vacuuming old dust bunnies from behind the desk.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/EffectiveEmu809 on 2025-07-20 20:53:33.

I have an external hard drive that has about 3TB of RAW photo files from my hobby photography. In the past I have done a semi decent job at copying the data to another drive routinely. I'v recently realized one of my hard drives failed and I am down to one copy of all of my photos on a HDD that is 7 years old. I just purchased a new 4TB SSD to make my working drive and a new 8TB HDD that I will use to routinely make a backup of this working drive and then store in a safe place. In the past I have just copy/paste. My question is there a better way to get this copy? I have looked around in Time Machine but I don't see a way to just keep a copy of the external drive. I don't want other files from my computer on the external. I'd like to be able to just plug the two drives in once a quarter or so and click go and a process happens that adds any new changes/files to the backup disk and then eject and store the backup. Thanks in advance!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Nomad_76 on 2025-07-20 19:35:12.

Have a 16 bay dell r720 with 2.5bay drives I’m looking to fill so I can run a second NAS. My current one I bought with the drives already lovely 16 15K 300gb SAS HDD. Asking the people who’ve been doing this longer on a good SSD brand that won’t absolutely kill my wallet but are still reliable. Thank you for your time!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/drowned_phoenix on 2025-07-20 18:59:05.

Hey fellow datahoarders, I've been data hoarding for more than ten years, but only now I am starting to implement more serious backup and error prevention measures, as only recently I've discovered all the risks and nuances of this practice.

Today I have 3 copies of my data, the production copy in the HDs/SSDs in my machine and two copies stored in external hard drives, which are kept offline. These two HDDs use exFAT format. I am also researching for a good cloud solution to keep a fourth, off-site copy.

So, my main concern right now is making sure the data in these external hard drives doesn't get corrupted and that I'm able to identify and recover from errors.

What kind of strategies can I implement to better keep my data safe?

In terms of limitations, I'm not able to buy new hardware for the next few months and this data needs to be readable in Windows OS.

Thanks in advance!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/c0de854-T on 2025-07-20 18:52:11.

I am looking for a 3.5" hard drive with either 8TB or 6TB capacity. I want to store this hard drive for two years without power. Is this possible?

What kind of hard drive would you recommend?

I plan to use this case to store it - what do you think? https://www.orico.cc/index/product/detail/942.html