In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file
servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media. I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives. A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!). E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf? (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly) Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval. I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>wrote:

In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file

servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media. I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives. A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!). E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf? (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly) Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval. I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

Light proof metal boxes:
https://panteltje.nl/pub/CD_box_IXIMG_0547.JPG
https://panteltje.nl/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Place for 1000 CDs / DVDs / Blurays and M-Discs
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
M-DISC's design is intended to provide archival media longevity.[3][4]
M-Disc claims that properly stored M-DISC DVD recordings will last up to 1000 years
? Wikipedia

A good drawer will store many of my 4 TB Toshiba USB drives.

For high level EM pulses use metal drawers?

The advantage of drawers is that things cannot easily fall like from shelves.

Anyways even 20 year old CDs I burned still playback, the secret: darkness
exposure time multiplied by light intensity like in photography.

The big challenge is to make sure you have playback means
I bought an USB floppy drive for the old floppies.
USB DVD and Blueray players ? I think those exist too
And then USB will become old...


Maybe carve in stone in old underground caves.
If aliens land here they will conclude life once existed here...

I mean when trump is allowed to go on making war, goes nuclear.




--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:01:59 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file
servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media. I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives. A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!). E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf? (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly) Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval. I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

How much storage do you need?

We use Dropbox and make a hard drive backup regularly, just in case.


John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/20/2026 1:27 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>wrote:

In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file

servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media. I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives. A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!). E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf? (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly) Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval. I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

Light proof metal boxes:
https://panteltje.nl/pub/CD_box_IXIMG_0547.JPG
https://panteltje.nl/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Place for 1000 CDs / DVDs / Blurays and M-Discs
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
M-DISC's design is intended to provide archival media longevity.[3][4]
M-Disc claims that properly stored M-DISC DVD recordings will last up to 1000 years
? Wikipedia

I've been copying optical media onto magnetic disks as a matter of
convenience (I can mount any of 1000+ optical disks just by spinning up
one magnetic disk) and as a safeguard against "recordables" getting
bitrot.

[So far, I have kept the original media under the bed as a backup of the backup. But, I imagine I will discard them, soon.]

A good drawer will store many of my 4 TB Toshiba USB drives.

I don't have much faith in thumb drives. Especially higher densities/capacities. Even old SLC have "developed problems"
so I don't rely on them (though I have been buying "lots" of
"recovery media" (8GB) to use in place of optical media as
relying on those drive mechanisms is also becoming tenuous.

For high level EM pulses use metal drawers?

The advantage of drawers is that things cannot easily fall like from shelves.

I figure a 3.5" disk fitted into a 1"x3.5" slot will only fall
out if the shelf unit falls over. There, the design issue will
be ensuring the "shelf" is not tall and slender but more "squat"
to keep the center of mass low.

But, storing lots of drives "cold" almost feels sinful.

Anyways even 20 year old CDs I burned still playback, the secret: darkness
exposure time multiplied by light intensity like in photography.

I have kept my writeable media in black tyvex-like sleeves
in boxes salvaged from the USPS (one of their "fixed price"
boxes is exactly as wide as sleeved optical media). You
need an ordered list, though, to locate a specific medium
(and have to take care to replace it in the spot from which it came!)

The big challenge is to make sure you have playback means
I bought an USB floppy drive for the old floppies.

I still have an *8* inch, NIB (floppy) drive (with electromechanical
lock on the door! I used this with a large disk cache on a Z80
machine to prevent the media from being removed until the cache was
explicitly flushed to the medium). But, I think the magnetic media
of interest has long since been transcribed so the drive is redundant.

My EPROM programmer requires 3.5" floppies to operate
so I keep a laptop with 3.5" drive on hand for that.

USB DVD and Blueray players ? I think those exist too
And then USB will become old...

Without a doubt, *the* long-term interface is a NIC. It's
as close to ubiquitous as you can get, has a long history
with no foreseeable end in sight (in terms of hardware and
protocols)

I think SATA/SAS drives will have available kit for a while
(even if salvaged; it's an electronic interface so nothing
mechanical on which to rely). And, damn near any box with
at least one SATA/SAS interface will almost certainly have
a NIC so getting to the data from another box doesn't
rely on having a "special" interface on that box!

I'm more worried about the rapidly increasing capacities;
I won't use anything bigger than ~8T as it just takes too long
to transfer all of the content to another box (8T/200MB/s=11hrs).
I've been piling up 14T drives as I can't think of anything
to put *on* them (that I would be willing to wait to recover!)

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>wrote:

On 7/20/2026 1:27 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>wrote:

In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file

servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media. I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives. A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!). E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf? (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly) Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval. I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

Light proof metal boxes:
https://panteltje.nl/pub/CD_box_IXIMG_0547.JPG
https://panteltje.nl/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Place for 1000 CDs / DVDs / Blurays and M-Discs
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
M-DISC's design is intended to provide archival media longevity.[3][4]
M-Disc claims that properly stored M-DISC DVD recordings will last up to 1000 years
? Wikipedia

I've been copying optical media onto magnetic disks as a matter of >convenience (I can mount any of 1000+ optical disks just by spinning up
one magnetic disk) and as a safeguard against "recordables" getting
bitrot.

[So far, I have kept the original media under the bed as a backup of the >backup. But, I imagine I will discard them, soon.]

A good drawer will store many of my 4 TB Toshiba USB drives.

I don't have much faith in thumb drives. Especially higher >densities/capacities. Even old SLC have "developed problems"
so I don't rely on them (though I have been buying "lots" of
"recovery media" (8GB) to use in place of optical media as
relying on those drive mechanisms is also becoming tenuous.

Yes, some oif fthse thub drives failed on me
But those Tisiba 4TB are good old spinng magnetics
https://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Basics-Portable-External/dp/B0BQX82Q17 I have 4 in use now, no probelems, 2 on 24/7 one for many years?
Thing spins down if no data exchange.

For high level EM pulses use metal drawers?

The advantage of drawers is that things cannot easily fall like from shelves.

I figure a 3.5" disk fitted into a 1"x3.5" slot will only fall
out if the shelf unit falls over. There, the design issue will
be ensuring the "shelf" is not tall and slender but more "squat"
to keep the center of mass low.

But, storing lots of drives "cold" almost feels sinful.

Anyways even 20 year old CDs I burned still playback, the secret: darkness >> exposure time multiplied by light intensity like in photography.

I have kept my writeable media in black tyvex-like sleeves
in boxes salvaged from the USPS (one of their "fixed price"
boxes is exactly as wide as sleeved optical media). You
need an ordered list, though, to locate a specific medium
(and have to take care to replace it in the spot from which it came!)

Yes I have q text file 'dvd list,

This is an example of an entry (box was almost full hosts 100 discs)
998
Tue Oct 8 12:43:07 CEST 2019
BD-R25GB
Mediarange 4x inkjet printable
LG BH10LS38
PLEASE STOP ANY RTL_SDR write data errors observed when that is running!
Make sure you habve enough disk space.
dd if=/dev/zero bs=100000000 count=242 > bluray.iso
mke2fs bluray.iso
mount -o loop=/dev/loop0 bluray.iso /mnt/loop
cp ... /mnt/loop/
du /mnt/loop
#umount /dev/loop0
umount /mnt/loop
cd /mnt/sda1/video/satellite
growisofs -speed=4 -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=bluray.iso
dvdimagecmp -a bluray.iso -b /dev/dvd
# df
/dev/loop0 23261268 21022524 1057104 96% /mnt/loop
# l/mnt/loop/
total 20977548
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19095 May 7 23:33 xinutop_manual.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4385000000 Jul 1 18:01 freibeuter_des_todes_german.ts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 58 Jul 11 10:40 xinutop-nav-x86-2.4.img.md5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 682624000 Jul 11 10:44 xinutop-nav-x86-2.4.img -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4294705152 Sep 8 01:51 stones_havana_NPO_3-20190907213907-.mts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 627385344 Sep 8 02:28 stones_havana_NPO_3-20190907213907-.mts1 amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3949971456 Sep 8 05:59 stones_havana_NPO_3-20190907235958-.mts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1993500000 Sep 24 16:53 the_great_wall_2016.ts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2354400000 Oct 3 17:05 last_man_standing_1996.ts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3172370000 Oct 8 12:39 a_cure_for_wellness_2016__german.ts amovie

When you make DVS or other backups, make sure you do not include personal stuff in it
That is whey I make a file system as above and clear the entry like this
dd if=/dev/zero bs=100000000 count=242 > bluray.iso
mke2fs bluray.iso
mount -o loop=/dev/loop0 bluray.iso /mnt/loop

The big challenge is to make sure you have playback means
I bought an USB floppy drive for the old floppies.

I still have an *8* inch, NIB (floppy) drive (with electromechanical
lock on the door! I used this with a large disk cache on a Z80
machine to prevent the media from being removed until the cache was >explicitly flushed to the medium). But, I think the magnetic media
of interest has long since been transcribed so the drive is redundant.

Unfortunately my 8 inch drive that I used for my Z80 sysytem is no more.
Some stuff I did backup though

My EPROM programmer requires 3.5" floppies to operate
so I keep a laptop with 3.5" drive on hand for that.

Ah! only need a serial port ;-)
https://panteltje.nl/pub/8052AH_BASIC_computer/8052AH_BASIC_computer_8049_programmer_board_img_1731.jpg
https://panteltje.nl/pub/8052AH_BASIC_computer/8052AH_BASIC_computer_inside2_img_1757.jpg



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/20/2026 11:28 PM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

I don't have much faith in thumb drives. Especially higher
densities/capacities. Even old SLC have "developed problems"
so I don't rely on them (though I have been buying "lots" of
"recovery media" (8GB) to use in place of optical media as
relying on those drive mechanisms is also becoming tenuous.

Yes, some oif fthse thub drives failed on me
But those Tisiba 4TB are good old spinng magnetics
https://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Basics-Portable-External/dp/B0BQX82Q17
I have 4 in use now, no probelems, 2 on 24/7 one for many years?
Thing spins down if no data exchange.

I leave most of my spindles "off", only powering up the
device that contains them when I need to access something
stored on them.

My workstations each have 4 drives but even those don't
run 24/7 -- spinning down when I walk away from the machine.

I rescue SAS (and some SATA) "enterprise" drives -- 33 4TB
drives last month, each with four or five power-on-hours
(i.e., essentially "new")

Anyways even 20 year old CDs I burned still playback, the secret: darkness >>> exposure time multiplied by light intensity like in photography.

I have kept my writeable media in black tyvex-like sleeves
in boxes salvaged from the USPS (one of their "fixed price"
boxes is exactly as wide as sleeved optical media). You
need an ordered list, though, to locate a specific medium
(and have to take care to replace it in the spot from which it came!)

Yes I have q text file 'dvd list,

This is an example of an entry (box was almost full hosts 100 discs)
998
Tue Oct 8 12:43:07 CEST 2019
BD-R25GB
Mediarange 4x inkjet printable
LG BH10LS38
PLEASE STOP ANY RTL_SDR write data errors observed when that is running!
Make sure you habve enough disk space.
dd if=/dev/zero bs=100000000 count=242 > bluray.iso
mke2fs bluray.iso
mount -o loop=/dev/loop0 bluray.iso /mnt/loop
cp ... /mnt/loop/
du /mnt/loop
#umount /dev/loop0
umount /mnt/loop
cd /mnt/sda1/video/satellite
growisofs -speed=4 -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=bluray.iso
dvdimagecmp -a bluray.iso -b /dev/dvd
# df
/dev/loop0 23261268 21022524 1057104 96% /mnt/loop
# l/mnt/loop/
total 20977548
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19095 May 7 23:33 xinutop_manual.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4385000000 Jul 1 18:01 freibeuter_des_todes_german.ts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 58 Jul 11 10:40 xinutop-nav-x86-2.4.img.md5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 682624000 Jul 11 10:44 xinutop-nav-x86-2.4.img -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4294705152 Sep 8 01:51 stones_havana_NPO_3-20190907213907-.mts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 627385344 Sep 8 02:28 stones_havana_NPO_3-20190907213907-.mts1 amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3949971456 Sep 8 05:59 stones_havana_NPO_3-20190907235958-.mts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1993500000 Sep 24 16:53 the_great_wall_2016.ts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2354400000 Oct 3 17:05 last_man_standing_1996.ts amovie
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3172370000 Oct 8 12:39 a_cure_for_wellness_2016__german.ts amovie

When you make DVS or other backups, make sure you do not include personal stuff in it

I don't backup to optical media -- too small for anything but an incremental backup (and I *hate* those!)

My DVDs are usually archives of completed projects -- all the datasheets, tools, sources, schematics, invoices, receipts, etc. I don't keep much "paper" so need some way of remembering what was involved.

I've taken to just keeping entire VMs so I can resume work with a particular project *in* the environment that was in place when I last worked on it.
I can quickly duplicate a VMDK and then play around without worrying about corrupting the archive of the project.

That is whey I make a file system as above and clear the entry like this
dd if=/dev/zero bs=100000000 count=242 > bluray.iso
mke2fs bluray.iso
mount -o loop=/dev/loop0 bluray.iso /mnt/loop

When I discard media, I have a tool that I built (for a nonprofit)
that scrubs the disk clean -- including HBA, DSO, etc. If it
"discovers" that some number of sectors have been remapped
(I never use a disk with remapped sectors so anything remapped
MIGHT contain remnants of prior content), then the disk gets physically destroyed (drilled or shredded).

[I've encountered too many discarded machines that have NOT been
scrubbed and wonder what their prior owners were thinking - or
NOT thinking -- when they tossed it out with personal information.]

The big challenge is to make sure you have playback means
I bought an USB floppy drive for the old floppies.

I still have an *8* inch, NIB (floppy) drive (with electromechanical
lock on the door! I used this with a large disk cache on a Z80
machine to prevent the media from being removed until the cache was
explicitly flushed to the medium). But, I think the magnetic media
of interest has long since been transcribed so the drive is redundant.

Unfortunately my 8 inch drive that I used for my Z80 sysytem is no more.
Some stuff I did backup though

I had trouble backing up the 8" media from the ZDS's (hard sectored
floppies). But, resorted to transfer via XMODEM.

My EPROM programmer requires 3.5" floppies to operate
so I keep a laptop with 3.5" drive on hand for that.

Ah! only need a serial port ;-)
https://panteltje.nl/pub/8052AH_BASIC_computer/8052AH_BASIC_computer_8049_programmer_board_img_1731.jpg
https://panteltje.nl/pub/8052AH_BASIC_computer/8052AH_BASIC_computer_inside2_img_1757.jpg

I use a Unisite:

<https://static-data2.manualslib.com/product-images/cc7/1660146/data-i-o-unisite-xpi-motherboard.jpg>

But, in recent years, rely on network boot protocols for most of the
devices I design (putting just a tiny bit in a boot rom to bring
the network on-line).

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/20/26 12:01 AM, Don Y wrote:

In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file
servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media.ÿ I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives.ÿ A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!).ÿ E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf?ÿ (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly)ÿ Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval.ÿ I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

A few hundred terabyte? Yikes! It might be time to not just get rid of
kit but also of tons of data.

My whole business backup is less that 20GB and that's decades of
engineering, book keeping, tax stuff et cetera.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 7/21/2026 2:57 PM, Joerg wrote:

On 7/20/26 12:01 AM, Don Y wrote:

In an ongoing push to get rid of kit, I've been tearing down file
servers with the thought of discarding the "hardware" and just
holding onto the media.ÿ I.e., physically mount them when their
contents are needed (I have the contents of each volume indexed
on an RDBMS so my arms just become part of the "seek" mechanism
reloading cold volumes).

But, now I need a place to store all these drives.ÿ A drive cage
only makes sense if there are no electronics behind it (else
there is no real savings!).ÿ E.g., gut a few shelfs and stack
them to make a composite holder?

Maybe a couple of 1x6's with kerfs on ~1 inch centers and a bit
of masonite to act as a shelf?ÿ (I suspect a pair of biscuits
on each side would be more than adequate but that might not
keep the drives aligned properly)ÿ Tack a bit of masonite across
the back to prevent them from being pushed *through*?

In ages past, there were mechanisms for storing *tape* offline
for ease of retrieval.ÿ I suspect disks aren't expected to be
offline so doubt there is any similar "device" available for
their use?

Of course, I could buy a few hundred terabyte TF's and store
everything in a box of coughdrops -- but, I don't think that
would be as reliable a medium!

A few hundred terabyte? Yikes! It might be time to not just get rid of kit but
also of tons of data.

My whole business backup is less that 20GB and that's decades of engineering,
book keeping, tax stuff et cetera.

*Business* records take up very little. As do hardware designs, datasheets, etc.

I've digitized all of my textbooks and novels (in high resolution to improve OCR) as well as imaged every audio/video/data CD/DVD medium so I can rid
myself of those "less dense" storage media (I can watch a video, read a
book, listen to music sourced from magnetic media just as easily as
"the original" and it takes a small fraction of a percent of the space).

The digital "libraries" are big -- I may have 300 DVDs of video effects.
Or, 3D CAD models. Typefaces. etc. Having them combined on fewer media eliminates the hassle of digging through *spindles* of optical media
searching for a specific item, installing it in a drive, mounting it
and *previewing* its contents: "Nope, that's not the one I want!"

My rainbow table library is 16T.

But, the big pigs are the VMs. A few TB for each project to allow me
to recreate the exact working environment in effect when working on
that project. While I no longer support those clients, the individual
projects are how I remember which tools were used for it -- and how to
find them.

Of course, each build environment gets larger than the one before
(as I acquired more tools and enhanced the cabilities of the
machines) so each VM gets larger (the VM for my current workstation
would be close to 30T spread over 4 physical machines -- that because
I have copied those various libraries/collections onto their
respective machines so they are more directly accessible).

And, you don't want to *run* those VMs as that alters them. So,
you make a copy of a VM before tinkering with it (the tools it
contains).

And, EVERYTHING in the archive needs to be replicated...

With media effectively free, the issue is only one of keeping track
of "what's where" -- and physically storing *cold* drives for the
time they may be needed.

I have an index on an RDBMS that tells me which files are located
on each medium, meta data for each (size, hash, last used, last
*verified*, its relative "value" to me, etc.) along with free-form
comments that let me leave notes to myself about "specifics".

Whenever a physical medium is brought on-line, a daemon queries
the database to find the "most important" files that have NOT been
verified in the "longest time" and immediately checks their signatures
against those stored in the RDBMS -- to alert me of any corruption
(a file that is never *accessed* tells you nothing about whether it
*is* accessible AND intact!).

In the event a signature fails to match, the RDBMS tells me where
I can find a duplicate copy of the intact file (ideally, somewhere
on the same medium or one that it KNOWS is available, now) -- even
if that copy resides in a ZIP/ARJ/RAR/VMDK/TGZ/etc. "container".
So, I can recreate a corrupt copy in its intended spot in the
hierarchies of filesystems.

This really is no different than the data management tasks a
real employer would face. If called upon to revise last year's
model of a product, you'd need to be able to access all of the
files pertinent to it's design AT THAT TIME along with the set
of tools that you had in place to manipulate those files.
(e.g., you may have moved on to a different CMS, VCS, layout tool,
word processor, etc. but you *still* need to be able to access,
and likely MODIFY, the things you created with the prior tools!)

You may use a RAID array/ZFS pool to automate the checking and
replacement of corrupt files (and likely can't peek into
ZIPs to do so!) but you are still paying for the redundancy
with extra media and MIPS.

Or, you are simply shedding old work.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)