Ahem, I've heard of "preservation projects" even many years ago; private, distributed and community-oriented preservation projects, coordinated by torrrent files.. I think it's very feasible but not exactly complying with media rights.

By the way I kinda understand that "absurd" number of ca 20 TB if all kinds of media from any moment is included. It's a real archive for any person who has more than...30? years and has been a fan of movies or high quality music. Back in the day we just trusted original editions (physical copies) and we (tried to) make a copy of them at most. Movies and games have bloated enormously the last ten years with extended support of new OSes and features, and especially when high resolution had become the target (confront old games and their HD remasters: when it comes to required disk space the difference is...so big it's almost disappointing).

I suggest to run this project in background while one's life goes on: it's just too much to complete, iit' better to dedicate to it half an hour when one has free time and is bored, since it's not likely to be completed in years and will probably be a perpetual WIP.
First step is weeding out duplicate files in the source material and try to reduce the size of the files. There's bloat and unwanted redundancy even in the original. The desired redundancy should be only in the backup(s).

Four copies is a bit too much: I'd stop at three, one original, including high-quality/original edition physical media, one local and a further backup, maybe an online one.

You can reduce the size of the copies using compressed images instead of 1:1 copies of the disks.

You could do with big (rotating) HDDs as you've said, it's not unfeasible, just tedious and extremely slow to do.

When coming to games and movies/music, you could also use recordable blu-rays. I't a bit exotic/uncommon tech but I think it could be a really stable backup option, compact yet quite large in capacity. A very old-style approach.

I'd not exclude the cloud for at least a fraction of your collection. It's a potential privacy problem, it could require a fee but if you really want to be completely safe, having a copy "somewhere else" is a good thing

I agree. Especially when you have few but very important "data", simple is better: having to keep a decoder of sort ( a computer with software to read, a compatible screen or player, etc) is a bottleneck/weak point. A real object is just...ready to b enjoyed. But I suppose we're mainly talking about recordings or videogames here. They're natively digital

Some people may barely believe me but we got now SINGLE HDDs that cost way above 1000 hard currencies.

Currently over 1300 CHF for the newest 32 TB. I really never would have guessed, not even in wild dreams... that i may experience in some decades such high prices for the newest "top notch" storage-hardware. In theory i would need a second "super big = 30+ TB" HDD but the prices are just messy.

Economy is kinda damaged or the coins simply had too much of loss in value, yes "inflation" is a thing.

It is available... well a bunch country-wide, but yeah... have to be rich, it seems.

https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/seagate-exos-m-32-tb-35-hard-drives-64644622

The 30 TB version is as well currently pricier than what i had to pay some months ago = 676 CHF. It was never going down to the level i had to pay anymore, as the availability is just beyond worse. I assume those factories have to build weapon-parts now for the wars happening, else i can barely explain the big shortage for months or even years... at such crazy prices.

Sure, those HDDs got high tech inside, as it is becoming challenging putting so much data on it. However... last year the 30 TB drives was still going for around 550 CHF (the average value for many months) and short time after the big wave of datacenter-gold-rush was incoming... the prices was spiking like mad and never came down anymore.

While on camera-hardware i indeed can detect prices coming down and better offers happening in general... but on hardware it is a nightmare, perhaps for years to come. Not a fairy tale... it seems true. Reason why i was "Investing" in camera-hardware as i simply found a better value in it.

While i still can store my data, it is simply not "as secure as i would enjoy it to be" due to crazy pricing and lack of getting the required redundancy. I can just watch the prices for months and years to come, but it kinda feels like sitting on a tinderbox until the point i got the affordable offer (affordable is a relative term... simply not robbery).

You really had to have a 32TB HDD? The 28TB version would have apparently cost less than half of that, and also 30TB would have been much much cheaper.
So you really paid premium for buying the very biggest model.

On my front, last weekend I noticed the files had gone from my 8TB main archive hard drive which is probably the most important archive that I have.

At first I wasn't sure if it was a filesystem problem (NTFS) or if the hard drive is starting to fail, but I ran CrystalDiskInfo checks on it and everything seems fine. Apparently something had just messed up the whole filesystem, it was quite ok the last time I used it a few weeks ago.

I didn't feel like trying to save the data or fix the filesystem because I had the secondary 8TB hard drive in the cupboard. It is a 1:1 copy of this 8TB HDD and apparently I had synced them last October so I am quite sure I didn't at least lose any data, ie. new files added to the archive. At best I had done some tidying up on the failed hard disk removed some redundant files and moved files around.

So I just formatted that failed hard drive and copied everything over to it from the secondary backup. I ran the rhash checksum checks for all the files on that hard drive and everything was in order (except a couple of files, more on that later). So all was well again.

So those excepions... when I ran the rhash checks, it reported three files had gone missing. It was the fcking god damn Windows Defender again! Fck that piece of shit, seriously. It just removes files without asking me or even clearly notifying me, I wouldn't have noticed them unless rhash had told me those three files were missing.

Luckily those files were still intact on the secondary backup so I disabled Windows Defender realtime scanning and copied those files back to their place, and also compressed them with 7-zip so that they would become invisible for that god damn stupid Defender.

I consider them false positives or at least completely harmless because one of the files was an exe file for a MS-DOS game, while another was an Android game (apk file), a game I had bought from Humble Store a long time ago. ("Llamas with Hats", I guess this game)

https://www.mobygames.com/game/68669/llamas-with-hats-cruise-catastrophe/

So nice of MS trying to prevent people from disabling Defender, even as much as until the next reboot. No we can't have that because MS knows better what files should go to trashcan, and in secrecy too, hiding it all from the user. Fck Microsoft.

I really should move all my files to some more Linux friendly filesystem and keep all my archives there and operate them only with Linux; at least then I don't have to fear the stupid operating system suddenly decides to remove some of my files from the archive. With Windows I have to act carefully, disabling Defender whenever I can and trying to hide the files from Windows by compressing them with 7-zip etc.

I do NOT own a 32 TB HDD... i never said i was buying one. I just am interested into such a HDD at a fair price.

I do own a 30 TB HDD which was priced 676 CHF some months ago.

I know i could be insane but i am not that insane for buying a HDD above 1000, those prices have to stop... seriously.

As timppu said above, there are cheaper alternatives, usually slightly smaller versions from the previous generation. But you could have found the explanation by simply googling "hdd price increase reasons", and even the AI summary at the beginning will name the culprit: the "overwhelming demand for high-capacity drives in AI infrastructure, data centers and enterprise storage".

That demand has already sucked the RAM market dry, then the SSD market and for some time also HDDs, since SSDs alone provide way too little storage for their needs. This is possible because the AI companies have way more money at their disposal than the entire memory and storage market used to cost just one or two years ago. And since those data centers and infrastructure, namely power plants, can't be built fast enough, a lot of that hardware is stored for the time being in some warehouses, so that nobody else can get their hands on it. End customers, and even the large OEMs, have ceased to play any meaningful role in the market.

But you can rejoice, since with all that storage the service providers will be able to stream all games you can dream of to the meager thin client box that you'll be able to afford in the future - hopefully just joking here...

Although. currently, ´the "flagship size" is by far the highest price... even the second or third largest drive is very expensive at around 700-800 CHF. I can even tell why, because if a HDD manufacturer can charge 2 times more for the biggest size... there is little reason to continue producing the smaller drives if they do offer a way lower margin. If YOU are going to buy the biggest size, they may not care at all... as long as a AI company is buying their entire production.

Guess you should have guessed it yourself... but in the end, even me is in need of a at least 30+ TB drive, so going even lower is just not an option... as... you may be surprised... just as those dirty rich AI companies... as well got never enough storage as even my 30 TB is now almost filled up (about 1.5 TB left). The smaller ones simply can not store a entire image anymore... it is that simple. It may be hard for you to "pick up my reality" as long as your reality is like "I got 10 TB of data and i am all fine with 10 TB or whatever", but this is not my reality.

I am already deleting many "rollbacks" in order to shrink the data demand... yet this is not always optimal, as i prefer to have some rollbacks. It was already leading to some troubles where i was in need of the deleted rollback.

CERTAINLY not for free but it will increase in cost the further any alternate options are wiped out from the "world stage"... so stay tuned!

You will then notice even better "where they got their money from".

I had oversimplified my post somewhat. That previous generation drives were from before the price hikes, at some retailers, too few for the AI companies to scrape them together when the new generation was already available in large quantities. There are also still consumer grade drives available that wouldn't survive a professional storage center, but the large manufactures will probably shift to datacenter drives as much as possible and consolidate the number of available storage sizes - not a model for every two TB step as we have it now.

Most of the current situation was predictable to some degree last year, so I took the plunge and ordered most parts for my new built and expansion of my storage pool in Q4: decent AM5 mainboard with current CPU, but it should still be sufficient for the upcoming Zen 6 architecture, 64 GB RAM, new graphics card (5060 TI, mind you, since that is sufficient for my needs), 10 TB PCIe SSDs, 12 TB SATA SSDs, 100+ TB HDDs for my three NAS Systems. So I'm good for years to come. :)

Well, yeah. I hope none of my existing archival HDDs breaks down before the prices come down. I am also slowly trying to weed out stuff from my archives, to free up space. I know there is lots of redundant stuff etc. but it takes some effort to go through it.

Or, on the other hand, maybe we have lived in too cheap times, RAM SSD and HDDs have just been abnormally cheap up until now?

I am just happy I happened to buy two 4TB SSDs for my main gaming laptop just before the RAM and SSD prices went crazy. Already then I noticed the prices had went up a bit and some SSD models/brands were out of stock, but I happened to buy two of then while they had three in stock.

I am now in PC survivalist mode, trying to get by with my current hardware, also for gaming. Playing older games and shit. Then again, sometimes I feel there are some (used) laptops that seem to have quite a good price, e.g. two days ago I was eyeing this one for my kids, to replace their non-Win11 capable old laptops that might break any day now.
Back then its highest bid was 500€, now the bidding has ended and the winner apparently bought it for 660€:

https://huutokaupat.com/kohde/6185168/dell-precision-7740-intel-i9-9880h-tehokannettava-17-3-fhd-32-gt-1024-ssd-quadro

Quite a good semi-gaming laptop, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD etc.

I feel it has to stop or at least slow down at some point, there might be even a semi-crash if and when some smaller AI companies can't keep up and go bankrupt etc. The question is when, and yeah it could take years before things get "normal".

Then again what is normal? Maybe before the hike the prices were just too low and we have become accustomed to get 2-4TB SSDs with pocket change. The prices of SSDs per GB really seemed to have plummeted before this hike, a couple of years ago I wouldn't have thought I buy two 4TB speedy SSDs already now (before the hike).

I was the guy who kept saying HDDs are still fine for home PC general use and gaming, simply because I felt SSDs just cost too much if they were above 500GB or so. I didn't feel like that anymore last January or late 2025, and already felt the only reason to buy HDDs was with 10+ TB sizes for archival purposes.

No!!!

As long as certain companies can buy out over 90% of the market at absurd high prices, then we do NOT have a too-low-price problem but a distribution-of-wealth-problem. Either those companies should become poorer or the big majority wealthier... you can make the choice yourself!

In my mind... if i would be the "world-ruler", i would give everyone a unconditional basic income, on top of what they already earn... and if this is not possible then i will sell those assets from certain companies for making it happen, on the entire world of course. I guess i was now sufficiently straight and clear. We can not continue like this forever if the big pool of people can barely afford "real stuff" anymore and only a few % are kinda buying almost everything.

I surely hope that this gets down sooner than later and wouldn't mind a crash of some sort. With the exception of the Google search AI summary I mentioned above, I've disabled every last AI application on my PCs, notebooks, smartphes, ebook readers, streaming devices and what not. Apparently there is some growing discontent among investors that AI companies are still not raking in the money big time. On the other hand I've read in recent weeks several articles and editorials in US magazines, that it is now or never, because China would in case of a slowdown uncatchably pull ahead. So this gets also a political dimension to keep it going.

I had my eyes for a long time on a Sansung 870 QVO 8 TB, which was sold for about 330€ at Amazon's Prime Day 2024 (or was it 2023?), but it increased shortly after into the 400€ and later 500€ range, before the real price hike even began. So in my eyes the prices for SSDs had remained relatively flat for some time, and I didn't find them too low. Just for giggles: The 870 QVO 8TB can now be bought for the cheap price of 2,446.26 € at one shop here in Germany.

Just like you I was more modest with the storage of my previous, still used PC from 2017, which had started with 500 GB SATA SSD and 2 TB HDD and had added 1 * 2TB (entry level) PCIe SSD + 1 * 2TB SATA SSD in later years. I don't know if I will really install all the PCIe and SATA SSDs (and a few HDDs too) from my other post in my current build, but since it will probably serve me about a decade, just like the previous PC, I wanted at least to have the option.

I am not convinced, that going for a very large drive, was a smart thing to do.

It's noisier, takes longer to spin up, so has delays, and has management issues related to having a lot of data on it.

So I won't be doing it again.

Then there is the very worrying issue of ... if it dies, all that time and effort to duplicate.

Yes, mentally it feels nice to have all my GOG games on one drive. But in reality, it is almost a nightmare.

And in reality, my drives and the number of them have grown due to requirements, and that is pretty much a norm. And due to the money I've spent on them, none can really be redundant unless they give issues or die.

So as they say, safety in numbers ... and not all your eggs in one basket.

And ultimately, while life is about risk, it needs to be a sensibly managed one, and not based on an emotional scenario.

If we ever have a better scenario than the technology of current drives, that is more reliable, and far longer lasting, and if lucky, cheaper, then I would take the risk of having all on one medium. But even then, I would want multiple physical backups, knowing full well the vagaries of technology ... especially the human element involved with them.

And in the end, we don't live forever anyway, and in our declining years, if we make it, will we still be playing games.

Actually my 16 TB Ironwolf HDD is probably the most noisy one, only beaten by the 10 TB ones... the only ones driving with air-filling.

The other HDDs i use... if not actively in operation, are as good as without any noise and during operation as well barely more noisy than some high spinning fans. The 2 HDDs inside my big tower and attached at the back (solid MB and strong glass in between) with good mounting are actually inaudible for me if not in operation and just barely audible when in operation. External HDDs are noisier because of bad mounting (and nothing strong in between able to insulate noise) inside those never good enough-enclosures (impossible to get better ones). However... the external ones are not permanently enabled.

Even more important is the enclosure, as this one may even extend the noise if badly built... and some of them can reduce it a lot as a HDDs noise is mechanical, and mechanical stuff can be insulated for soundproofing pretty good. The motor itself is basically without any audible noise on a high end datacenter-drive. Most noise come from writing, a bit lesser from reading when the heads are actively working.

So, nope... bigger drives are not noisier... which makes them a good drive to have, for those able to afford it. It just makes no sense if someone is never in need of this capacity... such people may exist.

There is a reason those huge drives are so pricey... not just because of the size, as well the very advanced and quiet running technology (for example it can reduce external vibrations by balancing it out) involved. I surely can say... the modern high capacity drives i currently use are the ones with the lowest noise i ever had. The only drawback is that the write/read speed is not improving anymore, so yeah... it can take 1-2 days on a fresh "full backup".

I think your knowledge is a bit "aged"... perhaps you may need a new 30+ TB drive to realize the new reality.

Well, i do understand it well that i am probably the less than 1% of gamers with this kind of space demand, especially on a platform that is focusing on many "tiny classics and indies"...
That does not change the fact that we all are different and that i am one of the few gamers enjoying a "active library" of every game installed instead of always installing 1-3 games and then remove it after, perhaps forever.

The GPU demand is in general "bigger" but not nearly big enough to even be able to challenge a PS5 Pro or not big enough to be able to exceed a Steam-Machine... according to the intelligence gathered on Steam.

So, yes... it is "above average" or "above standard"; i am well aware of this.

I still dunno why i should make myself as tiny as possible as soon as a AI-industry or Steam itself is Steamrolling me... and telling me to "shut up"... as i do not seem to deserve so much hardware as a "pointless gamer" instead of a "productive AI-producer" or something in this line.

However... the current US administration along with their shareholders is probably soon pumped out of even more money and taxes-reductions in order to support the hardware-industry the best way possible, so the high prices may not last forever... just need some years of endurance to "survive" this costs, with some luck.

So, i only will need to add a 32 TB HDD and then i call it "good for 1-2 more years". I will not buy many new games anymore as i am now "full" and should focus on the games i already got. PS5 will as well become turned down pretty much and in 2028 it is wiped for me... so, the big save up on software is enabled, while hardware may need a single strong investment... when prices are "better".

Practically my drives are now as good as "full" but technically still with some needed headroom left. At least i now got around 700 PC games of any size always installed and will focus on those games for many years to come... with very few fresh games added and only the very best i could think of. Space is valuable now, and i am not planning to upgrade it even more the next 1-2 years.

Although, i got another 4 TB T710 SSD as a backup, still sealed... that is probably used on a new PC in 1-2 years but in theory can be used for current stuff as well. I got this drive at a (even more) "relative bargain-price" of 514 CHF, which is "only" roughly 25% higher than in 2025 (its cheapest year), although... i do not expect this drive to ever go clearly below this line anymore... not even in 2 years, so i tried to "secure" me another one so i may never have to worry... i hope. Only 4 on stock and probably no restock... so this drive could become wiped after on any shops, for a long time or until the AI industry has become a serious blow or power cut.

So, anyway.... i try to get a hand on a 32 TB HDD i could barely afford around the next year, in order to fix this still latent backup-redundancy-issue but the SSD-matter is solved until my next PC build.

The picture is as well here in order so the people, who clearly live in a different "scaled down consumerism... few copy installed or owner-world" may understand my relative "hyperscaler-approach" which is rarely done on consumers, as this was never meant to be "accessible to them".

While it is still possible to rarely get some "somewhat affordable" high-end-SSDs in their category... it is impossible to get any affordable RAM anymore, still... (...) which can still be a serious issue for 1-2 more years to come.

Although, almost impossible to still get a somewhat affordable "entry-level-SSD", this market is pretty much wiped for now and consumers usually will focus on the smallest sticks of 512 GB up to 1 TB... as this is the only possible way to scale down the price in any meaningful way = tiny space. It was never my approach (i like to own, manage and control my stuff), so i am the wrong one to ask for.

Besides, the T710 (purple color) is attached externally but handled as a internally "active drive" with a own letter. It got less dependent game installs that can be "switched to another PC" without any reinstall required. So, this drive basically can be taken over to another PC without any reinstall. The other SSDs on the other hand are permanently attached directly on the board and can not become "switched around"; they as well will store more sensitive games that root themself with higher dependency to a system. So, gamers see... nothing is done without reason and by using some "wise management" i can even "reuse" some of the pricey drives without always the need to "scale up" a newer system completely... or only if i could actually afford it.

Such "wise management" with low reinstall-requirements can of course only work if either no DRM present or if a DRM has been removed... else it is usually impossible as the DRM is trying to prevent it as soon as it does detect another PC.

"Temporary Archive" is the download-drive, so the downloads will not "hog" the system or any other drive and it is not meant for long term storage (this is HDD only).