This is based on a post by u/SubstantialWing9238. i didn’t want to hijack their post, so I figured I’d share it here instead.

Something like this, plus another cart, is pretty common with large corporations. When you have this many drives, it’s often easier to just shred everything than pay someone to wipe them, sort through them for resale, and see if any data can be recovered.

This batch was around 300 drives, and with a specialized shredding truck, the whole thing takes about 45 minutes to a hour.

I used the wiki to find some great sources of data for a class last March. Is there somewhere else where these torrents can be found? /u/archivist ?

So, after receiving my Stormforge N10 with a few status LEDs knocked clean off the board in shipping, and getting a partial refund from Aliexpress, I decided I'd change the colour scheme to pink (for drive presence) and purple (for activity).

Somewhat inspired by a Hello Kitty themed audio mixer/effects rack build, I decided to go with another sanrio character, Kuromi. Because all my homeys stan the goth rabbit.

The factory backplane in the N10 runs the activity LEDs directly off the P11, the drive activity pin on the SAS/SATA power connector.

The original blue LEDs draw about 1.7mA each. I've seen conflicting reports as to how much current this pin is supposed to sink, from 100uA to 15mA. The most reliable resource I could find is a manual for Seagate SAS drives that said 3.3V @ 15mA. The factory LEDs run from the 5V rail but *should* in theory have enough voltage drop across them to stay below 3.3V.

Purple LEDs are not very efficient. I'm running them at about 14mA, which *should* be within limits if most drives are similar to seagate's, but given how expensive hard drives are right now I don't really want to risk it.

So I build this little buffer circuit to run the activity LEDs. It draws about 220uA @ 0.6V on the activity pin, and should be able to handle >40mA for LEDs

https://github.com/lucym202/N10-LED-Buffer

https://legacygames.com/legacy-games-closure-faq-everything-you-need-to-know/

Legacy Games is shutting down, encouraging everyone to download their owned games before the shutdown date as once it has passed it will no longer be possible to do so.

I saw someone mention that the installer is temporarily placed in your temp folder when you choose to install.

Has anyone got a tool for grabbing all installers for all owned games in your account?

Facebook marketplace in my area is selling four 8 TB hard drives each with 60,000 power on hours for $140 each. The drives also have power on counts and the high 200s. How high is too high when considering a used drive? I would likely keep 16 TB in Cold storage but I don't want to waste money if the drives are too used.

All of the research I see shows people referring to the power on counts more than the hours, but no one gives their thoughts on what the range of good versus too high is. Thoughts are appreciated.

51 x 3TB and 2 x 500GB. I would love to keep them or sell them but it’s a big company and all they care about is getting the data destruction certificate. They are pretty old though and definitely have tens of thousand of hours on them.

I hope this is okay to post. Car Talk was a show entirely broadcast on public radio. As a Father’s Day gift, I would like to give my Dad access to as much of the history of the show as possible. I found a torrent, but no one is seeding it. Does anyone know where I can find the entire show’s archive or where I might be able to archive it myself?

Yeah, it’s been down since yesterday. Anytime I go on their website, all I get is “Too Many Requests”. Switching to .ph and .is and even .md leads to the same thing. I can’t contact the site owner because I can’t find their e-mail, plus it seems their blog hasn’t been updated since March. Seems no one else is saying anything either?

My NAS / external drive setup is solid for my computer files, but phone photos are the messy part and I keep going back and forth on how to count them.

Right now I have:
- Phone + cloud sync (which feels like 1.5 copies, not 2, since a delete / sync issue can propagate)
- A scheduled local copy to an external drive every week or two
- The local copy is just a big dump by date, so I lose the album organization I had on the phone

What I'm stuck on:
1. Do you count cloud sync as a real copy in your 3-2-1, or only as a convenience copy?
2. How do you handle the phone leg — scheduled local copy, manual export, something else?
3. When you export, do you preserve albums / folders, or just accept a flat date dump?
4. Do you actually verify the local copy — spot-check opens, checksums, test restore?

Curious how other people do this, especially for family phones where you have 2-3 phones feeding into one backup.

I'm a videographer and the cost of new storage is really hurting. I like to have 2 backups of all shoots, but with how storage has more than doubled since mid 2025, it's becoming more of a challenge.

Is there anywhere to buy cheaper storage from? Is there anywhere reliable for used or refurbished that is less expensive than brand new?

Thanks

Hein, Rich (1 October 2026). "The Wayback Machine Preserved 21 Years of Photos from a Webcam That Deletes Everything". How-To Geek.

This piece includes a technique that is of potential interest to data hoarders. (I apologize if it is already known.)

Unconventionally, a SFW Stash App instance seems like a great choice? The app already has a way to filter by performer/wrestler, can use Markers to notate start and end time of different matches and segments, etc.

But what else is out there? Any other data marks out there that are already solving this problem?

I have a book on the way, one which was cancelled last minute by the publishers due to uncovered behavior from the author in their last, some copies managed to escape to the wild and I've got one with the idea of getting it scanned, I don't endorse the author but it has art and forwards to sections from many talented people that collaborated on this project and my thoughts are it is out there why not archive it?

I am aiming for the highest quality scans possible which after some research means cutting the spine and scanning and I am fine with this but there are a few options in the UK and I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for who to use for this?

The Flora of North Dakota Database was created by a now-deceased Russian botanist who taught in North Dakota for nine years. It is entirely in the public domain.

The Internet Archive has a copy of it, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to reconstitute the original database from the copy on the archive. There are thousands of photos. The maps no longer work due to the server not having the software necessary to read the code for generating the maps.

I cannot post the url due to the domain extension being not allowed, you can find it with a search.

The purpose of a backup would be in case something happens to the only online copy.

This is an open request for anyone interested in copying the database and backing it up, without hosting being necessary.

I'm trying to use the "download .zip" functionality on archive.today, but it simply doesn't work.

It says "Not Found" and that's it. How can I download stuff from there?

I've tried many different pages, as well as being with and without VPN.

I have a Canon scanner and Linux. Wanting to scan stuff in FADGI 3.8 4-Star standard. What's the best CLI program to do so? I tried scanimage but I don't think it supports 16-bith depth (only 24 and 48).

FADGI 3.8 4-Star spec:

TIFF, JPEG 2000
600ppi
Bit Depth: 16
Adobe RGB (1998), ProPhoto, ECIRGB_v2
Color

The two primary types of recordable Blu-ray disc technologies used for data archiving are HTL (High to-Low) and LTH (Low-to-High), alongside M-DISC as an inorganic variant:

HTL (High-to-Low / Inorganic): Uses an inorganic metal alloy or phase-change recording layer (such as Verbatim's MABL) that starts with high reflectivity and transitions to low reflectivity when burned. It is the standard, reliable choice for long-term Blu-ray archiving with an estimated lifespan of 50 to 100+ years.

LTH (Low-to-High / Organic): Uses an organic dye recording layer that starts with low reflectivity and increases as it is burned. These discs are prone to organic dye degradation and are not recommended for archival use.

M-DISC (Millennial Disc): Uses a rock-like, inorganic vitrified carbon/silicon dioxide layer that is physically etched (ablated) by a high-powered laser rather than altered via a dye or phase-change material. It is marketed for multi-century or millennial durability, though standard HTL inorganic Blu rays serve a similar archival function.

Google

Hi, I bought an 18TB WD Elements off Amazon, which was listed as " Used - Acceptable", and said something about damage to the outside. I took this to mean, at worst, someone had shucked the drive and sent a dud back, but the price was good in the Current Market Conditions, so I decided to take a punt.

It's arrived, and aside from some dents in the packaging (which I assume is what they were talking about in the description), the contents look pretty clean, and there's no sign of any interference with the drive (it was even in the original sealed plastic bag). What tests can I run so I can smoke test before the return window expires? Thanks!

I had to wipe my Mac two months ago and I haven't been able to use my Backblaze backup since. When I try to Inherit Backup State, nothing happens. I've been going back and forth with their support team for weeks and I keep getting the same canned "have you tried turning it on and off again?" spiel.

I've had Backblaze in some form or another since 2019. They used to be awesome, reliable, great support, affordable... now this. A thing I paid for and can't use, because they just can't update their software correctly. Before this, I couldn't restore my files, because the date entry field in the web restore UI just straight up wouldn't work.

Anyone else getting lousy service from Backblaze lately?

Hi everyone. I’m a photographer, and I’m looking to upgrade/change my storage for a half decade of photos. I’ve currently got a Seagate 5TB HDD but it seems to be very slightly misbehaving, despite only having it a couple years and seeing mild usage. I know nothing is truly permanent, but I’d love a drive that doesn’t worry the hell outta me every few weeks.

Budget is <$400 usd, preferably.

I’ve seen the WD 8TB being recommended, is that a decent one to pick up?

I know virtually nothing about this topic so any wisdom is greatly appreciated.

I know that the best video downloaders are yt-dlp and 4K Video Downloader. That's what I previously used. However, something happened to my computer and I'm now unable to use either of them. Can someone recommend a reliable web-based video downloader?

I need some recommendations to update my personal media storage? I've been using this old Synology NAS and two 1Tb drives I bagged from my last job before being made redundant. However I feel like I'm stretching it's potential when it comes to storing and streaming my DVD, blu ray and 4k collection. Do I go down the route or buy a more capable NAS, going for quicker data transfer with some direct attached storage to my decent spec PC or just store on my PCs internal storage? I have about 500gb left on a 2TB SSD. Rest is taken up by games.