Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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Absolute beginner, looking for advice on getting started (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm trying to start things up and really not sure what to do next and would really appreciate any advice!

My main goal is offline information and media storage. I don't have too much to start out with at the moment so working with mostly a blank slate. Work is getting rid of old equipment, so I've got the basics. I have 2 desktops now (aside from my main personal laptop), both older Dells, Optiplex 390 & 7010 pretty much blank slate. I also picked up 4x 1TB HDDs, and 5x 500GB SSDs. They were all free so I just grabbed as much as I could. I've upgraded the drives in my 390, on the 7010 done nothing other than download Windows 10 for now. I'm not exactly computer illiterate, but this is a layer of complexity deeper than I am accustomed to and I am definitely out of my element.

Ok so what do now?

What OS should I use?

What Software should I get for actually storing, managing, and accessing this stuff?

What should I do with the SSDs?

Think my starting idea on all this is stuff like saving Wikipedia, iFixit, handbooks, cookbooks, maps, guides, etc. Then starting to save media, songs, books, movies/tv, whatever. First thoughts are to use one desktop for work stuff and less permanent storage, then the 390 for larger storage and more of a classic 'home computer' type like when I was younger. Not in any hurry to get all this accomplished right away, but looking for the next steps I should be taking and what direction I should be going. Any and all advice is welcome!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You have to figure out how many SATA ports and drive bays each system has. A lot of Optiplex systems only have room for just 1 or 2 drives, sometimes just 1x2.5" and 1x3.5" with no room for two 3.5" drives which isn't exactly good for hoarding.