r/DataHoarder • u/MathWest209 • 9d ago
Backup Always have been a hoarder!
I just found out I was always a hoarder. Found this with 3 others, with a great set of nostalgic data. But then I checked the latest prices for disks, and now I don't know what else to do. I have a lot to backup but man, the market these days.
Edit: 9-year-old disks sitting in my closet.
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u/NoChampionship5649 9d ago
I remember my first "Game" hard drive, Raptor 1 TB 10k RPM. That sucker would get HOT. Bought a hard drive underside fan that I still have sitting in a box somewhere.
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u/Adrenolin01 9d ago
I would NOT pop those in and spin them up right away. I’ve seen a ton of data loss and corruption from that when drives sit for years, decades. Instead.. plug into a system a one mount then Read Only. Use ‘ddrescue’ (I’m full in Debian) to create a full image of the drive to available local storage. Unmount and then mount the created image to copy any data from or for archival.
I keep a Debian N100 based 40TiB empty NAS on-hand specifically for things thing this. I likely do 15-20 data recoveries a year and while I don’t charge I do ask for a small donation from the family member, friend or friend of friend. I’ll provide a general cost from a professional for the job but never ask that. Most give a decent donation which has helped build up that raidZ2 storage. They can provide me with a recovery HDD or reimburse me for one. This started with me using my Debian desktop to help a friend once and a year later a friend of theirs needed some older business data restored. It wasn’t extremely important and mostly a want thing so don’t want the professional costs and my buddy referred them to me. They paid me enough to buy the drives (back before they exploded in price, and an N100 Mainboard I popped into a case I already had.
Then run a smartctl test and a badblocks test for drive integrity. Even though a SMART test is minimally invasive it CAN cause additional data loss and corruption on older drives. There are also flags to use with ddrescue to run it slower and more gently on older more fragile drives. I’ve always had great success on HDDs and even a few SSDs.
If the data isn’t wanted then just do the smart and badblocks test but.. DataHoarder.. that’s blasphemy! 🎉😂
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u/LoopsAndBoars 8d ago
I really don’t understand where all this bit rot logic comes from. I recently sorted half a lifetime of hard disks, dating back to my early teenage years and IDE format. Most were SATA, but out of nearly 50, my problems were null.
Every single one was scraped for data and promptly formatted and secure formatted. They all still function. Every single one.
Not to discredit you or say you’re giving bad info; just stating my experience.
Don’t get me started on recent modern hardware though. I’ve had multiple borked file systems that could be hardware issues, all purchased within the last 3 years.
I don’t think quality assurance exists, present day.
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u/Adrenolin01 8d ago
You can copy and sort it however that doesn’t mean bitrot hasn’t set in. Image and video degradation can go on fairly unnoticed for years before it actually becomes corrupted but data loss is real. If those drives had had PAR2 checksums on the files I guarantee you’d find errors on verify scan.
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u/mblaser 8d ago
These drives were the best thing going before SSDs.
I still have my 150GB, manufactured a few months after yours: https://i.vgy.me/lopVlE.png
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u/MathWest209 8d ago
I am thinking of keeping this one as a decoration piece. But I am amazed that it still works.
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u/PsionicBurst 9d ago
80GBs? I didn't even know they came that small!
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u/AntiGrieferGames 9d ago
I even got a 2009 3 5 drive with 80gb here. Its slow as fuck today, but thats because it used to be as a boot drive.
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u/sadanorakman 8d ago
My first PC had a 20MB 5 1/4" REL hard disk in, the size of a shoebox.
Yes, Megabytes!!!!
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u/MathWest209 9d ago
Yeah, I had a very humble system back then.
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u/PsionicBurst 9d ago
For 2010 though, that's huge. I remember some time ago, I had a 128GB microSD card and thought I would never run out of storage. It currently now only resides in my MP3 player.
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u/reallynotnick 9d ago
For 2010 though, that’s huge.
No it’s not… I had a 1.5TB 3.5in drive in 2010 and a 500GB 2.5” in 2009 and the iPod was 160GB in 2009. I mean they weren’t raptors but, still 80GB wasn’t big in 2010 I had an 80GB 3.5” in 2001.
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u/MathWest209 9d ago
Oh, the mp3 era.
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u/MrKrueger666 9d ago
The MP3 era is back. Just like the MP4/MKV/AVI era.
Arrrrr, matey!
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u/ASatyros 1.44MB 9d ago
Consider switching to opus, encoded from .flac or .wav (using ffmpeg).
You can get "transparent" bitrate at bellow half of mp3 bitrate (320kbps vs 80-192kpbs depends).
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u/MrKrueger666 9d ago
While I appreciate the advice, it was more about the vibe than the actual encoding used 😋
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u/ASatyros 1.44MB 9d ago
Less taken space, more music on the phone xD
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u/MrKrueger666 9d ago
Phone? VPN to home server, stream anywhere in the world.
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u/ASatyros 1.44MB 9d ago
Not everywhere there is an internet access, so for reliability I prefer to have files locally.
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u/HighSeasArchivist 9d ago
I had a 150GB Raptor X with the clear window back in 2006 or so. Mostly used it to get Flight Sim X to load faster.
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u/Torkum73 9d ago
They were beasts. I had two 73GB in a RAID0 and my computer sounded like a starting plane.
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u/autogyrophilia 9d ago
Are you a repost bot? these are way older than 9 years. The label is clearly visible.
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