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.

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.

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.)

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

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 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 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.

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?

Hi everyone, I need storage for objects and material library that I can pull into a current 3D projects, as well as said projects. Should I get an SSD or an HHD is fine? Thanks!

Drive disconnected mid use so I restarted the pc and now it's clicking. Its a 12TB WD Ultrastar DC HC520 I've had for like 2 years now. Its full too. I don't mind buying another harddrive but I'm praying nothing is lost and it's all recoverable. What are the chances it's not before the tears start flowing. And before people say "you should've kept back ups". This was the backup, OF THE BACKUP. Assuming this is a mechanical / head failure. What are the chances my data is

gone. Is it more than likely that my 12 TB are untouched

So for whatever reason before I bought my HDDs I checked the storage compatibility page for the enclosure (DXP4800 Pro), and saw WD and 22 TB, and went bananas buying WD HC570 because I saw a good report on them from Backblaze... Well, compatible ones are a different model.

Well, they don't even appear on my BIOS, and the enclosure LEDs blink orange wherever I connect them. I had an old HDD and that one marks white LED, so all good. I don't have a PC or a way to test them somewhere else.

I bought them while traveling, no way I can return them now. On LLMs I asked and they keep mentioning something like:

SATA 3.3 Power Disable (PWDIS Pin 3): Enterprise SATA drives feature PWDIS on Pin 3. Because consumer NAS backplanes supply 3.3V across all power pins, the drive will receive a signal telling it to turn off and will stay completely cold. You will need to place a small strip of non-conductive Kapton tape over the first 3 pins on the drive's power connector so it can turn on.

Is that true? Do you have a video you recommend for doing this if it would make my HDDs work?

Or do you know if I'm screwed with these HDDs for now?

I want about 3 x 22TB HDDs, let me know if I have to follow the compatibility page or which ones you recommend.

Thanks!

Does anyone know how to get a copy of the installer now that it’s been discontinued? I’ve been searching for a few days and been striking out.

I was troubleshooting a burning error when I came across a tidbit about using the slowest burn speed for archival purposes: "If this is critical long-term archival data, selecting 2x provides even tighter pit precision and lower block error rates (LER/SER)".

Is this true? Would this still be an issue even with data verification?

I shut down twice a day. Never considered the wear and tear on my 3 HD’s or is it not a big deal?

Hi! Following the 3-2-1 mantra I am looking for a cloud storage in which I can do weekly backups of some sensitive data (250gb). I have it stored in a headless debian server so i'm looking for something cheap but reliable (yeah I know), but especially that I can just set it up as a versioned cron job via cli with cryptomator or similar

Any suggestions?

does anyone know why this keeps happening it only happens on certain videos the download button is available and you press it and the video always downloads to about 66% then it says “can’t download video” so then i try to download the video using a 3rd party website and then it downloads but when you open the download there’s only audio but no video and it just shows the apple quicktime logo. does anyone why why this is happening or is anyone else getting this problem??

I picked this 2x 4tb HGST for $65 this morning off of FB marketplace. The seller pretended to not know how many hours the drive have accumulated. I should have known better when I was handed a white label (brown box) Hdd box full with static b a g and the plastic guide to hold an hdd for transport on a 11 years old drives. The original plan was to add this to my snapraid drives. Atm I'm not sure if it's still got plenty of life left as a media drive.

According to CrystalDisk:

Drive 1 have 73359hrs w/ good health.

Drive 2 have: 84309hrs w/ good health.

What would be the best , most affordable temporary cloud storage option? My old laptop is dying on me (disk error) and I need to back it up just long enough to be able to afford an external drive with some decent storage on it. I’m big on privacy, I know I may need to pay a little because all the free options I’ve found have a small limit of data and I would rather not have all my data so scattered , I’d rather be able to keep it all in one (safe) place. Money is really tight right now so I’d really love suggestions if anyone has any

Hello friendos. First time poster

TLDR; I have some old 2000s PC CD Games I would like to backup and make ISOs of.

The tricky thing is navigating the old SafeDisc or SecuRom DRM.

Any recommended tools to make ISOs I can use to install my games? Linux or Windows options welcome. TIA

I came down stairs to the postman dropping the mail out of his delivery trolley from waist height onto the floor. I actually think landing on the corner might have softened the blow because there's such a crumple zone.

This box contained 3x 28TB Seagate ironwolf drives.

They were wrapped up in bubble wrap and packed pretty tightly in the box with those inflatable soft plastic bubbles.

How fragile are these drives? Do I need to be worried?

I have 3 other deliveries, two of them were delivered by the same guy, one is still to come. I know he dropped at least one of those boxes the same way and it landed flat.