My HD is chocking but I don't want to throw away culturally precious mataerial (mainly movies)

I've left wigh 10 gb in my hd, almost 300 gb in my hd are occupied by culturally relevant films (in hig deifinition) that in the future (I bielieve, and I'm afraid) won't be so easy to find and thus I am reluctant to delete.

I cannot right now buy and external HD (that in the long distance I will surely loose in the profoudities of a cupboard), is there any solutions, safe and cheap to keep them somewhere online and made them available to anyone somewhere that is interested to watch them?
Thanks to anyone who will want to help me. Have a nice day!

30 comments

First of all, take the HDD offline. That means power it off (Turn off your computer) and do not use it, by removing it AND unplugging GENTLY from your computer and putting it in a safe, dry non-vibrating place. If this drive is the only drive in your computer, you need to stop using that computer.
Second of all, you must purchase a new hard drive! Save up for it if you must, you must have a new Hard Drive or SSD to save the data.
Third, you must wait until you have purchased a new hard drive for the data. once you have done so, you can take your computer offline again, and reinstall/re-plug in your drive, then bring it back online and copy the data over to the new drive immediately!
- It's hard to tell from OP's English, but I think he's just running low on space?
  
  Not likely. The english is awkward but pretty heavily means the drive is failing.
- Offline drives die too.
  I've had more drives die sitting on a shelf.
  Electromechanical stuff is just like us - it doesn't do well sitting still.
  
  the magnetic domains slowly relax. if you plug it in once or twice a decade, you can significantly reduce the changes of that happening to an extent that you lose data.
  
  Not true. If it died on the shelf; it died the moment you powered it down. It was already dead.
- Like the other guy said I also think that he's just running low on space. Secondly not using the drive will keep it good for longer but it will still bit rot(if he plans to keep the drives for very long)
  
  Not likely. The english is awkward but pretty heavily means the drive is failing.

I don't know why no one mentioned it yet, but those are very well known movies, albeit old, and will probably remain pretty easy to find in the near future.
If you still want to hold on to them you could download handbrake. This software lets you shrink a file size by a lot depending on the settings you're working with, and how much you want to compromise the quality.
Also in terms of cost, local storage will always be cheaper than web, mostly due to the fact that cloud storage is paid periodically, while you can buy a decent sized SSD for 40 euros

A lot of those are huge directors so I'm not sure they'll be lost. You could torrent though and share around.
- yeah, check if any of them haven't been made availbale through torrenting. at least try to seed the rest.

either delete the data, or move it.
those are really your only options. if the drive you're talking about is the only one in your PC, it needs some free space to do it's thing. mechanical hard drives are pretty cheap and abundant. check with whatever is local to you, about used ones if you need something on the cheap. even new ones in the 1TB range are pretty cheap though.

Online storage ? Several hosts are based on nextcloud.

Find some big school, and ask them if IT have any hdd unused in storage, we replaced all hdd with ssd in a 500 computer parc, so we had plenty of hard drive to spare, they were 500gb but it seems good enough for you, they can probably give them for free if they are cool guys. Of cours use them only as backup, as they are more prone to fail
- thanks, I've never thought of it, but the won't never do such things, that would have seen as 'peculato'. Here in Italy where corruption is a major problems that is an hyperlegislation to avoid it. Peculato would be, I believe, in English embezzlement
  
  If you cant get a new hdd now, i would at least try to get one soon.

What about sharing them on some (or more than one) p2p network?
- This is the main problem, the lacuna between people who can use technolgy and ppl who cant'. How do I do it?
  
  I'll help you, dm me.

Used HDD's are crazy cheap on eBay and such since everyone's moving to SSD.
- You can never trust it for long term archival / to stay intact for a long period though.
  
  HDD's have been trusted for decades. Especially with S.M.A.R.T. enabled. Also in this case each sector would be written to like once. Should last several years easily.
- did not know that. Thanks a lot!

Option 1: Go to rutracker, and join the "guardians"
Option 2: get a raspberry pi or something, and maybe get a new hdd, and just seed
Option 3: get a backblaze bucket
These are just from the top of my head

Telegram.
I'm in a (private *) group where someone is constantly uploading old VHS's they have to archive them, off site.
the most important bit is making your Channel private, and Telegram then don't give a shit about DMCA's
Plug for a movie/DVD I couldn't find on an initial arrrrr'in - https://t . me/+5hi0Y6jNLMcwMGM0

Are you serious? Come on.
Get another drive and that's it.
You cannot afford it? I can spare one for you, pm me.
You want a different solution? There is none.

30 comments