It's A Digital Disease!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Exact-Flounder1274 on 2025-05-25 21:24:53.

Hi, I need a drive for backing up a bunch of old games. I am thinking of buying one of these. Are they fine for cold storage? Which one would you recommend?

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08GNB466W

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B093BVQYYM

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/genie_2023 on 2025-05-25 20:28:54.

Hello all,

I am not sure if this is the right subreddit for it but going to try mu luck anyway.

First a bit of background: I lived in the UK for about 7 years and then had to moved back to India about 8 years ago, quite suddenly. I left a lot of stuff in my friend's garage. This is my first trip back to UK so I am emptying her garage that she so graciously provided to store my stuff. Most of the stuff is going to charity or bin. I am making arrangements to ship some sentimental, emotional value stuff to India.

Now coming to my issue: over the years I have accumulated quite a few hard drives and CDs as data backups. I am fairly sure I have almost all the data in my cloud account but I can't be sure. So here are my questions:

• Is there a way for me to check this data (USB-A and dvd drives) here and transfer to my cloud?
• If not, is there a limit for traveling with multiple hard drives? Remember, I am not even sure that they will still work so can't power them on if airport security asks me to.
• What will be the safest way of disposing these hard drives if either they do not work or if I already have it on my cloud. These hard drives/cds have sensitive personal data and photos so can't discard them unless I am absolutely sure that the data can't be retrieved from these.
• If this is not the right subreddit for it, would you happen to know where I can post these questions? I fly out on Thursday (writing on a Sunday evening).

Thank you in advance!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/fawzib on 2025-05-25 20:23:00.

New one just came out and I was wondering how many 3.5" hard drives I can put in it and what do you guys think of a homelab unraid server. it might not be hot swappable but that is fine for my needs.

https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/meshify/meshify-3-xl/ambience-pro-rgb-black-tg-light-tint/

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/AlAcrab on 2025-05-25 19:55:12.

I had a IronWolf Pro which started making constant mechanical noise (as if seeking back and forth all the time? yet reboots and stopping/restarting the disk did not help), however no errors from the operating system, and the disk seemed to function just fine. but the noise drove me nuts...

It was still under a few months of warranty. I called Seagate, they recommended that I exchange it. which I did. the replacement disk was a refurbished one, not brand new.

Yesterday, less than a year later (but now out of warranty) it developed the same symptoms of constantly making the mechanical noise, yet seem to function fine. I took it out of the enclosure because I could not stand the noise

I have a Mediasonic HF7-SU31C external enclosure that had the IronWolf Pro, another Time Machine Barracuda and also hold a Barracuda (with all my wife's photos). and now has two empty bays (since I took out the noisy IronWolf Pro)

My original decision to get one "reliable" Time Machine drive and a secondary cheap Time Machine drive did not seem work, since the reliable one failed first...

I'd like to get another Time Machine drive. but which one? another "reliable" one? or another cheap one?

It seems that Barracuda is not very well liked in this group. yet the IronWolf Pro based on my experience seems to be less reliable than the Barracuda, and Exos are much more expensive.

Should I get Exos X18 14TB $230? X24 12TB $300? another IronWolf Pro 12TB $220? another Barracuda 8TB $110?

I'm leaning towards getting another Barracuda. since if one of the Barracuda fails, I still have the other one. but obviously I am no expert...

Any other suggestions?

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Chalikta on 2025-05-25 18:51:20.

What are the limitations after the trial ends? Does it stop working completely, or are some features limited/locked?

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/s4lt3d_h4sh on 2025-05-25 18:25:33.

Hey folks, I’ve got a Lenovo M80q Gen 4 Tiny that I’m using in my homelab. It has a built-in Wi-Fi card on an M.2 slot (probably E-keyed), but I’m not using Wi-Fi at all.

Unfortunately, this model doesn’t have a full PCIe slot soldered onto the motherboard, so standard PCIe HBAs are out of the question. That’s why I’m wondering:

Is it possible to replace the Wi-Fi card with some sort of SAS HBA or similar interface to connect a JBOD enclosure full of HDDs? Any M.2-to-SAS (or M.2-to-PCIe then to HBA) options that actually work in this kind of setup?

I’m running Proxmox and planning to use TrueNAS or similar to manage the disks. Open to creative solutions, including USB 3.2-to-SATA workarounds or other tricks you’ve seen work with Tiny PCs like this.

Thanks in advance!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Caballep on 2025-05-25 18:13:30.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Far-Glove-888 on 2025-05-25 17:59:48.

A few years ago I bought a motherboard with 6x m.2 slots hoping that I'll be able to populate it with 16TB m.2 sticks in the near future. Here we are today, still stuck with 8TB m.2 drives.

Is there any movement in the industry to offer 16TB m.2 to consumers? The datacenter alternatives use a different form factor and are way too expensive.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Flaky_Country_3951 on 2025-05-25 17:59:33.

I'm asking for a strange beast. I want to add a new USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 or better port to my computer and it does not have any PCIe slots, but I do have a free M.2 PCIe slot (normally an NVMe drive would drop in here).

This is not the normal adapter that everyone can find that allows an M.2 NVMe card to connect to a USB port, I want to go the other way around.

Sounds simple, right? Well I have had no luck, except bad luck trying to locate something that does this. I have even looked for an M.2 to PCIe x4 adapter but they all go the wrong way.

If someone can offer some help in locating a product which would do this, it would be appreciated.

The end goal... Add a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 or faster to my computer using he available M.2 (nvme) connector.

Thanks

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/8tomat8 on 2025-05-25 17:24:42.

I'm building a home storage for different kinds of not important media. I plan to go with 5x20+TB drivers, but have hard time finding any used drives with more than a 1TB.

There are many datacenters around, so there should be second hand market...

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Robin_Landon_3574 on 2025-05-25 16:33:23.

• BD-RE XL 100GB on Amazon.jp
• BD-R XL 100GB on Amazon.jp

Ideal stuff for backups of essential stuff that has to endure on the shelf for decades.

€6-7 per rewritable disk ain't that bad. And €2+ per generic BD-R. Interestingly, Verbatim's M-DISC version isn't in hwole enother order of magnitude - €3+...

Maybe because it might be not all that different from classic version ?🙄 * Review, Tested: Verbatim Lifetime Archival (Millenniata/M-Disc) 4x BD-R 25Gb

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/mrcrashoverride on 2025-05-25 16:30:04.

This should be easy yet I’ve forgotten and I’m noob enough that it’s a bit daunting this morning. I have a folder of files that I wish to create a separate folder for each file based on the file name. So a movie file let’s call it “John Doe” I wish to have the file moved into a newly created folder labeled “John Doe”

Can someone please help me with what settings to toggle. It’s so common and simple that I think it should be just a click and it auto configures, (might actually exist) but googling is only coming up with people that were doing it wrong asking for help.

Anywho I appreciate any and all help.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/FillSensitive248 on 2025-05-25 15:49:06.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/2020_2904 on 2025-05-25 15:19:11.

Hi. I want to download all archived pages of a specific domain. How can I do that?

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Electronic-Support34 on 2025-05-25 15:08:36.

Hey everyone 👋

I’m a developer and recently built a simple web tool called MediaHubTools that lets you:

• 🔻 Download YouTube videos (including Shorts)
• 🎵 Convert them to MP3
• 📥 Download Instagram videos
• 💻 Use it on browser (no install or extension needed)

Made this mainly for friends who didn’t want to mess with yt-dlp or shady downloader apps. Works well on mobile too.

Just looking for honest feedback from this awesome community — does it load fast? Anything missing?

➡️ https://mediahubtools.com/

Thanks in advance 🙏

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/jared555 on 2025-05-25 14:26:21.

Are there parts readily available for making a custom jbod enclosure?

Thinking being able to use quieter hardware/cooling than what is meant for datacenter use. Something like building in a fractal design case and when it is out of bays get another one and just connect it to the first server.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/arairia on 2025-05-25 10:20:35.

Hi! I don't have that much data, it's all under 15GB, but I've been taking out things separately, email separately, photos separately, other data all combined, since if you add to many things it tends to show errors in collection, plus I noticed it's much more reliable if you individually takeout. Right now I just need to takeout Drive and YouTube, but I've already done Takeout 6 times this week and 3 times today. So I was thinking if I'm going to run into some limit and perhaps if I do it might then put me on cooldown period which sucks... Rather I maybe wait like 10 more hours until it's been 24hrs since latest takeout and then Takeout lol. Thanks :)

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Environmental_Gap_65 on 2025-05-04 16:30:57.

Hiya,

I've been trying to transfer some files to my LaCie SSD from my mac. It's 90gb-ish and its a ton of smaller files inside one folder. It's stuck on 'calculating time left' and never progress from there. I tried compressing them to .zip and then extracting them when they were inside the SSD, but there's an error when unfolding/extracting the files inside the SSD.

How do I deal with this, and why is it so insanely slow.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/dstarr3 on 2025-05-04 15:12:40.

I'm going to be building a small storage server based on a Ryzen 5700G and a Gigabyte A520I AC motherboard. I'm hoping to get some ECC RAM, and I'm starting with the compatibility list provided by Gigabyte, but it's of course not exhaustive and the products I can find for reasonable money on eBay are not specifically listed.

There are two options that particularly stand out to me. There's some Samsung 2133mhz memory, but it's 4DRx4 and there are no 4DRxx items on the compatibility list. There's also some Samsung 2400T memory that is 2Rx4, which there are plenty of 2Rxx items on the compatibility list, though not specifically x4, mostly x8. Also, I'm not sure what "2400T" indicates versus a traditional 2400mhz label.

I'm leaning towards the 2Rx4 memory instead of the 4DRx4 memory, because there is no 4DRxx memory on the compatibility list, but I want to double-check here to see if I'm on the right track in regards to reading the memory compatibility list first. The list is here for anyone wanting to double-check my work:

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_a520i-ac_cezanne.pdf?v=01d5a39004cbc90ef77bc872a9eaccba

Thanks

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Sludge_Punk on 2025-05-04 15:08:27.

I'm archiving comics, and I've started to learn towards naming them with a YYYY.MM.DD at the beginning of their file, to make sorting and reading orders simpler and more efficient. So I was wondering if there was a program that did that, because typing them in manually for hundreds and hundreds of comics is.... not ideal.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/TriedWharf on 2025-05-04 15:08:15.

It's a kingston SSD, and transfers at about 40MB/s (not sure if it's because of my USB enclosure)

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/redd-or45 on 2025-05-04 14:48:44.

Not really a serious data hoarder but thanks to Amazon purchase history which goes back to the beginning. Between 2016 and 2021 I purchased an number of 2.5 inch external USB 3 and 3.5 inch SATA HDD 2TB to 5TB drives. Of the ones that are still available or their cousins prices are up about 2.2X since then.

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/TheCelestialDawn on 2025-05-04 13:26:46.

Questions:

1. Does this issue also apply for hard desks in PCs? I ask because I still have an old computer with a 1080 sitting next to me whose drives still work perfectly fine. I still use that computer for storage (but I am taking steps now to clean out its contents and store it elsewhere).
2. Does this issue also apply to USB sticks? I keep some USB sandesks with encrypted storage for stuff I really do not want to lose (same data on 3 sticks, so I won't lose it even if the house burns down).
3. Is my current plan good?

My plan as of right now is to buy a 2TB external drive and a 2nd one 1,5 years from now and keep all data duplicated on 2 drives at any one time. When/if one drive fails I will buy 2 new ones, so there is always an overlap. Replace drives every 3 years regardless of signs of failure.

4. Is there a good / easy encryption method for external hard drives? My USBs are encrypted because the encryption software literally came with the sticks, so I thought why not. I keep lots of sensitive data on those in plain .txt, so it's probably for the better. For the majority of the external drives I have no reason to encrypt, but the option would be nice (unless it compromises data shelf life as that is the main point of those drives).

5. I was really hoping I could just buy an 8TB+ and call it a day. I didn't really expect to have to cycle through new ones going forward. Do you have external drives that are super old, or has this issue never happened to you? People talk about finding old bitcoin wallets on old af drives all the time. So I thought it would just kind of last forever. But I understand SSDs can die if not charged regularly, and that HDD can wear down over time due to moving parts. I am just getting started 'hoarding' so I am just using tiny numbers. I wonder how you all are handling this issue.

6. When copying large amounts of data 300-500GB.. Is it okay to select it all and transfer it all over in one go and just let it sit for an hour.., or is it better to do it in smaller chunks?

Thanks in advance for any input you may have!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/notmarkiplier2 on 2025-05-04 13:14:08.

(hope I'm the first one to ask this kind of question around here, may or may not have seen some posts that are similar or exactly like this)

My 2.5 and my 3.5 were both got dropped on the floor. They've just dropped flat and didn't bounce or whatever, but I'm not sure whether or which side of the drive were they got dropped. Probably from behind as one was wrapped in a bubble wrap (3.5) and the 2.5 was just on top of it. When they got dropped they've landed both flat and the 2.5 were still on top of 3.5 and as of now, the 2.5 only rattles when is shaking vertically but isn't horizontally. The 3.5 weren't rattling vertically but I think I could hear a swooshing high pitched sound when you'd shake it horizontally. Kind of like when you swing a very thin stick, you'll get that high pitch sound.

I'm not sure if I should plug it in then see if it boots or just let a professional check the internal parts. Either way, I'm still is uncertain as one would cause more harm to the drives and the other would cost me money that much. However, I'm uncertain whether or not neither of the drives contain something important, so I guess I'll just leave it to that. I'd still would want to see some files around if they're important before totally disposing them. If they boot however but is only readable, how could I make a whole copy of its partitions? I'm guessing some or both of these were being used to boot windows before. Plus, I'm also guessing that while its gonna read it the drive, it would be intermittent. I don't know which software could help me with that sort of problem and surely to extract it as well. I hope some of you guys could help me here

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/RajSingh9999 on 2025-05-04 12:47:46.

Couple of years ago, I got GIGABYTE BRIX mini PC with Celeron Processor J4105. The machine details can be found on its home page here.

It basically has following relevant specifications:

• Front IO:
  • 1 x USB3.0
  • 1 x USB3.0 type C
• Rear IO: 2 x USB 3.0
• Storage: Supports 2.5" HDD/SSD, 7.0/9.5 mm thick (1 x 6 Gbps SATA 3)
• Expansion slots
  • 1 x M.2 slot (2280_storage) PCIe x2/SATA
  • 1 x PCIe M.2 NGFF 2230 A-E key slot occupied by the WiFi+BT card

Currently I have following things installed:

• Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
• 8 GB DDR4 RAM.

CPU-Z says following for the RAM:

• Total Size: 8192 MB
• Type: DDR4-SDRAM
• Frequency: 1197.4 MHz (DDR4-2394) - Ratio 1:12
• Slot #1 Module - P/N: CB8GS2400.C8JT

This machine is running Windows 11.

Now, I am embarking my journey to configure this machine as my central storage server / HTPC. These are my usecases:

• Syncing important OneDrive and Google drive folders (currently done with OneDrive and Google Drive clients)
• Downloading torrents (currently done with qBittorrent windows app with WebUI enabled)
• Downloading and streaming YouTube videos / playlists / channels (currently done with TubeArcivist through docker compose)
• Downloading movies, TV serials (not yet done)
• Viewing photos (not yet done)
• Remote Access (currently possible through Windows Remote Desktop on same network. For accessing over Internet, I have installed TeamViewer and enabled unattended access. I know it sounds dirty approach and I should try VPN. But for a moment this works.)

How I am thinking to set up my media center / backup server:

I am still exploring the Media server apps landscape and recently came across apps like sonarr, radarr, jellyfin, jellyserr, prowlerr. I routined work with docker containers and I feel I will end up running everything as a docker container spawned through single docker compose file. Some have already shared such single docker compose files that can configure and spawn all necessary apps docker containers in one go. For example this reddit thread and this medium article share such docker compose files. This github repo also seem to contain docker compose files for different apps.

So as long as I have this docker compose file saved somewhere (say on cloud storage or even in email), I can spawn exact same apps ecosystem and their inter-communication configuration within couple of minutes on Windows (or Ubuntu) with single command. I will no longer have to backup container itself. Only things I will need to backup is media and docker container metadata. I can specify host mounted volumes for all containers for both media and metadata. For metadata (say subscribed youtube playlists / channels in case of TubeArchivist), I can create a cron job to compress and backup corresponding hosted metadata volumes on daily or weekly basis. In fact, I can create these scripts once and run it inside another docker container captured in docker compose so that even backup mechanism will start along with other containers. All I will need is single docker compose file. If metadata is small (need to check), I can backup it to cloud and restore it from cloud in case my server crashes. If it is big, I will need another separate drive may be configured in RAID. But I am currently not thinking of this, as I dont have big storage drive currently. I am planning to buy my first 4TB 3.5 inch storage. In future, I may expand it to multiple HDDs. At that time, I might think of proper RAID / mirrored NAS solution.

I have following doubts:

What storage I should opt for? I read internal SATA HDDs are more reliable than external USB connected HDDs, but a bit costly. Also, SATA SSDs are a lot costlier than SATA HDDs. So am leaning towards internal SATA HDDs. But my challenge is how can I connect it to mini PC ! It can only fit 2.5 inch internal SATA drive (and one NVME SSD). It does not have space for 3.5 nch drive. Also, 2.5 inch SATA connection (5V) cannot be used for 3.5 inch internal HDD since it does not supply enough power (12V) for internal HDD. I also have tower PC with ATX motherboard. I thought I can utilise power connection from tower PC and SATA connection to mini PC. Then I thought I can simply put min PC and HDD inside tower PC's cabinet. But I read its not good idea since mini PC and tower PC will have different grounding and will end up damaging HDD. So now I felt that I am only left with external casing with SATA to USB converter. I can keep the casing open to let HDD cool enough. I am thinking of this 3.5 inch HDD external case and Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS HDD.

Q1. Will SATA to USB converter end up damaging the HDD.

Q2. Can I use Seagate NAS HDD by fitting it inside external HDD enclosure? Or I should just buy some non-NAS HDD?

Regarding ZFS

• I read ZFS is kind of defacto for NAS.
• But currently I only have 500 GB SATA SSD and am planning to buy 4 TB internal HDD.

Q3.1. Will ZFS consume a lot of storage out of 4TB? Will it cause a lot of reads / writes to wear out my only HDD?

Q3.2. I read ZFS consume considerable amount of RAM. Will it slow down my mini PC?

Q3.3. I believe ZFS (and even RAID) makes more sense when you have huge storage available (may be 16TB+). But, it does not make much sense when I have only single 4 TB HDD and 8 GB RAM. Am I correct with it?

Q3.4. Without ZFS, what kind of data corruption I am staring at?

Q3.5. If I thought it all wrong, and I absolutely should use ZFS even with 4TB drive, is it wiser to go for ubuntu (instead of Windows) with external drive formatted as ZFS?

Regarding proxmox

• I feel there are two things that I will miss if I dont go for proxmox: (1) I wont be able to run multiple Operating Systems on this machine (2) I will miss out of box implementation of ZFS.
• (1) Given that I will never require need for trying another OS on this machine (since I already have other machines running Ubuntu and Windows both), I feel I can get away with inability to run multiple OSs on this mini PC.
• (2) ZFS is already discussed in detail in Q3, so I wont repeat it here.

Q4. Is there anything else that I will miss if I run everything on Windows (or Ubuntu) inside docker containers and dont go for proxmox?

• Also I feel docker containers are faster and lightweight than proxmox LXC containers or VMs, making overall setup more faster in general.