is there anything like a decently priced drive anymore? I went to look up a 16TB drive as I’ve been running out of space with what I’ve been…. backing up and they’re running around $700. I paid $350 just a year ago. There’s no way this can be sustainable. I was working to build out my NAS but I’d literally be looking at almost $8000-$10000 in drives alone.

You can download the playable SNES Rom file in .sfc format.

• Hidden Palace: https://hiddenpalace.org/Dream:_Land_of_Giants_(Prototype)
• Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/project-dream-snes_202609
• Gameplay Video: YouTube / Invidious

I can also recommend following historical documentation video series from 2024 by The Obsessive Gamer. Each video about 23 minutes. They document cut content and history how the game was developed first on Super Nintendo as Project Dream, which later became Banjo Kazooie on Nintendo 64:

• Banjo Kazooie : History and Cut Content (Part 1): YouTube / Invidious
• Banjo Kazooie : History and Cut Content (Part 2): YouTube / Invidious
• Banjo Kazooie : History and Cut Content (Part 3 - Final): YouTube / Invidious

From README:

Today, I’m releasing the SNES proof-of-concept alpha of Project Dream, the proto-type that would go on to become Banjo-Kazooie.

I’ve held on to this for years, it was fun to have something that only a handful of people had, and as I am several people removed from how it got out of Rare to begin with, I didn’t want to risk that it could somehow get someone else in trouble, (so how I got it is a story I don’t plan to share.) I will just say that I got it from someone who got it from someone, who got it from somewhere.

But with the current state of the industry and Microsoft's current heartless gutting and mismanagement of Rare and other companies it controls, plus with how long it's been, I feel it's more important to make sure this is properly preserved, and the ROM dissected by people with far more knowledge on how to do such things.

I hope by releasing this, that it also inspires other people to release what they have as well. I know the Twelve Tales Conker 64 prototype is out there somewhere, but sadly, this is the only thing that I have.

There is little joy left in the industry, as it relentlessly marches towards AI, layoffs, l anti-preservation and ownership tactics, and, in Microsoft’s case, the support and approval of literal genocide in Gaza.

Let’s get the last beautiful things hiding on our hard drives out there for everyone. That's all we have left.

Please delete Microsoft and Sony from your lives, install Linux, boycott Switch Game Key Cards and buy Nintendo Switch 2 titles that still come with the full game on the cartridge. Your dollar is the only thing that counts in our late stage capitalist hellscape.

The attached zip contains a .bin file of the raw dump, and then the same file renamed to a .sfc to work in emulators, as well as this text file.

If any game journalists choose to report on this prototype release, I would ask they kindly include the full contents of this text file as courtesy to me for finally getting this out to you all.

Be blessed, and love each other.

Signed,

FvckAsha&Phil

"No device found" on FlashGBX: remember to install the CH340 driver!

#GameBoy #GBC #GBA #FlashGBX #datahoarder

Just spent 3 hours trying to figure why it wouldn't be recognized by either my main computer, a VM with USB passthrough, or an old laptop I did a fresh install of an older Win10 build just for testing the dumper.

Turns out I was missing the driver for it. =.=

With that in mind, besides warning of that, I'd also add that if you got a throwaway computer you can stick Windows on a computer with Windows on, that may be the best option, as the setup version of FlashGBX for Windows comes with the needed driver.

Also rambling a bit, but Windows' device manager makes more sense than Linux Mint's, or at least it shows when an "unknown device" is connected or unplugged. That helped quite a lot.

I think we would all hoard data if it was cheap.

Today I had to suggest cloud storage. That's the cheapest and easiest to maintain.

There is optical storage solutions that is adequate for most consumers and even LTO tapes it is fast enough, can be produced cheaply but the drives are advertised to businesses and sold with that business premium cost.

This bugs me. Also the fear of being deported soon

There was talk sometime ago about hoarding the 20220830 Wikipedia dump as some of the big AI models went public soon after.

Now I can’t find it anywhere. Any suggestions?

Last week it was reported that a data retention contractor PBS used went out of business, making it impossible for them to retrieve their data stored at document storage company Iron Mountain. Things are looking more positive now, though, as a judge ruled PBS to be the owners of the data, allowing them to retrieve it (or, just leave it there managed by another contractor I suppose). Still, 3-2-1, folks.

They want us on clouds paying for a subscription. Otherwise these cartridges which can hold terabytes and last for 50+ years would be dirt cheap like your ex.

A cabinet like device where it has an arm to change tbe cartridges, and a software/ssd to view metadada, thumbnail, video preview is all a family needs... I think

I want to preserve data but it is hard and costly.

Bonus: imagine if the software would help you pic archival grade file formats and warn you when a file format is going obsolete.

There is a cool software I use called Wincatalog.

Cuckoo out

The original Nintendo Switch automatically downloads all new articles to the system when you're connected to the internet. Since 2023, I noticed that the Nintendo Switch only has a limited capacity of articles it can store offline on the console. After you exceed the limit, it begins to delete the articles one-by-one in order of oldest to newest. Some exceptions are that it does not delete articles that you explicitly bookmarked, nor the introductory articles that appear the first time you ever start the console.

Upon discovering this, I immediately realised how terrible this is for the preservation of Switch News Articles. It meant that by 2023, almost all pre-2020s news articles were permanently lost forever on the vast majority of console that are out there in the wild - because most people, even if they've never touched the News app on their console, have accumulated thousands of articles over time, thus causing the system to delete everything that is old.

At the time, I hoped that maybe someone had created a homebrew app for modded Switch's, that maybe rips the articles sort of like ripping games, so that you can store a backup of them. I thought this was incredibly unlikely though. I didn't have time to look into it at the time, so, because I now knew that more and more articles were being permanently wiped from my console, literally EVERY SINGLE DAY, I just got out my capture card, and began recording videos of me scrolling through each and every single article. My hope was that I could save everything on my console, and think about the homebrew thing later.

Well, that was three years ago, and I've still been recording every single article on my Switch since then. I've accumulated hundreds, possibly thousands of video file recordings of Nintendo Switch news articles. The only pre-2020s stuff I managed to archive were the few articles that I actually bookmarked back in the day. Otherwise, nothing earlier then June 2022 existed on my console anymore. My intention is to upload all these videos to The Internet Archive and Odysee (permaweb) when I get time to do so.

Since I'm in Australia using an AU console, I don't get every single article on my console. There's probably a bunch of country-exclusive articles I haven't recorded that could only be received on U.S. consoles, U.K. consoles, and more countries. I do mostly get articles that are released in most English speaking countries including America, but there are also a ton of region-specific articles I get too. Australia and New Zealand are grouped as the same region, so I get articles for both countries.

So, I've tried to look into whether a homebrew app of some sort exists that can be used to actually properly archive these articles... not just a video recording archive like mine, but a backup of an actual article file that can be loaded onto any console. I don't have any programming skills or console-hacking skills or a modded Switch, so unfortunately I can't just simply take the initiative to create something like this for myself. If I had the skills and knowledge, I would probably give it a try, but I just don't unfortunately.

So, does anyone actually know if there is any better way of archiving these news articles on a modded Switch?

• README: https://github.com/Abdess/retrobios
• Releases: https://github.com/Abdess/retrobios/releases

7303 verified BIOS and firmware files for 10 retrogaming platforms, 329 emulators profiled from source code.

What's included

BIOS, firmware, and system files for consoles from Atari to PlayStation 3. Each file is checked against the emulator's source code to match what the code actually loads at runtime.

• 10 platforms supported with platform-specific verification
• 329 emulators profiled from source (RetroArch cores + standalone)
• 396 systems covered (NES, SNES, PlayStation, Saturn, Dreamcast, ...)
• 7,303 files verified with MD5, SHA1, CRC32 checksums
• 8765 MB total collection size

Supported systems

NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Switch, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, PS Vita, Mega Drive, Saturn, Dreamcast, Game Gear, Master System, Neo Geo, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, Atari ST, MSX, PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Arcade (MAME), and 362+ more.

Coverage

Platform	Coverage	Verified	Untested	Missing
Batocera	361/361 (100.0%)	361	0	0
BizHawk	118/118 (100.0%)	118	0	0
EmuDeck	161/161 (100.0%)	161	0	0
Lakka	448/448 (100.0%)	448	0	0
Recalbox	346/346 (100.0%)	346	0	0
RetroArch	448/448 (100.0%)	448	0	0
RetroBat	339/339 (100.0%)	339	0	0
RetroDECK	2006/2006 (100.0%)	2006	0	0
RetroPie	448/448 (100.0%)	448	0	0
RomM	374/374 (100.0%)	374	0	0

• Downloads: https://www.hvsc.de/downloads
• Info: https://www.hvsc.de/info

After the recent post about thousands of chiptune music from cracking teams in mp3 format, I wanted to share an already well known collection of Commodore 64 music in their original tracking format. To play these SID format music files, an audio player that supports the format is required.

You only need to download a single complete package, that is in size 80 MB for 7z format or 97 MB for RAR.

61157 SIDS

About HVSC

The High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) is a freeware hobby project which organises Commodore 64 music (also known as SID music) into an archive for both musicians and fans alike. The work on the collection is done completely in the Team and contributors' spare time and is proudly one of the largest and most accurate computer music collections known.

I'm looking to get a new internal hard drive for a specific use case:

• it's for a desktop, meaning I can fit either
• i need 2TB, no more and no less, also meaning I can get either
• it's for my media collection, mostly movies
• it's not gonna be read-only, but I wouldn't write too often (I would torrent, but all the program's metadata would be on another drive)
• most likely gonna be formatted with btrfs (subject to change, open to suggestion)

Should I get the 2.5 inch or the 3.5 one?

Thanks in advance.

Collection of pre-patched Super Mario World Romhacks and Mods from SWMDB.me 202107 By Storage Manager (Repack)

Uploaded by Thingsiplay

Originally uploaded by Storage Manager at https://archive.org/details/super-mario-world-hacks (defunced now). This is a repackage of the same files. The original collection contains over 29 thousand files, only compressed as individual files. This means that Internet Archive's internal "on-the-fly-zip" doesn't work and each file has to be downloaded individually. I downloaded all files and packaged them up into multiple archives based on their category directory they were sorted into. Also the original source no longer exists, therefore this is a reupload for archival purpose.

Legacy information from original upload:

• Source: https://archive.org/details/super-mario-world-hacks
• Title: Super Mario World Hacks by SMWDB (2021-07-03)
• Description: Collection of Super Mario World Hacks from SMWDB.me (July 3, 2021)
• Uploader: Storage Manager on March 24, 2021

Complete: Entire collection of original upload. Each category is archived separately for easy download. The original 14 GiB full set of 29k compressed Roms. Every single Rom file is compressed as 7z.

Reduced: A script clean_smwdb.sh tries to detect multiple versions of a Rom and keeps only the newest entry of it. Furthermore bad files and unneeded categories (such as Jokes and Trash) are deleted. This reduces the total number of files from 29k to "only" 8k uncompressed Roms. Also while each category is still packaged for batch downloads, every single Rom file in it are already extracted (unlike the Complete packages).

YouTube is still one of the major points of centralization on the internet, so I've been brainstorming ways around the problem.

From the readme:

Torrent-Tube is a set of tools to help decentralize YouTube videos, by moving them to torrents, which can be shared by many people. It includes:

• A Torrent-Tube search site which searches the Torrents-csv search engine to see if the given YouTube video already exists, and is being seeded.
  • It does this by extracting the YouTube [VIDEO_ID] from a link, which you can also do manually if you like (IE, the text after watch?v=...).
• A script to download, and create torrent files from YouTube videos, with a uniform naming style and format, taken from TheFrenchGhosty's YouTube-DL-Scripts.
• You will need to upload these torrent files yourself to a service (details below), and seed them.

Torrent-Tube Search

In the future, it may be possible to create a browser plugin that checks a video link that you're currently watching for existing torrents.

Create torrent script

Requirements

• yt-dlp
• mktorrent
• wget

Instructions

Copy a YouTube video URL.

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/dessalines/torrent-tube

# Run the script
./create_torrent.sh [YOUTUBE_URL]

The video will download, and is saved in the videos folder. The torrent file is saved in the torrents folder.

Add the torrent to your torrent app, such as qbittorrent.

I have found a few on 4chan. A rotating realistic chicken burger with a transparent background for example.

It seems to be mostly the same 20 or so GIFs in regular circulation.

Ideally I'd like to avoid individual downloads or signing up for an account. I thought someone here may have stumbled across a page on the Internet Archive or something.

https://archive.org/details/nes-romhack-collection_202103-repacked

Total size of all 24.258 .nes Roms (plus a few other files) unpacked: 5.5gb

A huge collection of NES Rom Hacks.

Originally uploaded by MiroMirian at https://archive.org/details/nes-romhack-collection_202103 . This is a repackage of the same files. The original collection contains over 24 thousand files, without compression. This means that Internet Archive's internal "on-the-fly-zip" doesn't work and each file has to be downloaded individually. I downloaded all files and packaged them up in .7z archives. This reduces the download size drastically and also makes it possible to download all of them in one go.

Complete: Entire collection in a single archive. The original full set.

Split: Divided the collection by letter groups into multiple archives. Also removed all non .nes Rom files for additional cleanup. Otherwise contains the same Roms found in the Complete package.

1. Purpose

1. Internal Disk - OpenZFS/ext4/NTFS ? for all OS (Win,Lin,mac)
2. External Disk - Is exFAT OK ? Else OpenZFS/ext4 ? for all OS
3. Backup Disk - guy says exFAT is bad for backup as it corrupts. so ***ext4/***OpenZFS ?
4. SOHO Server/NAS - ZFS

2. OpenZFS vs BtrFS?

3.1 Is ZFS on Win/mac mature enough ?

• https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/openzfs
• https://openzfsonosx.org/

3.2 If not Is Ext4 on Win/mac good ?

• https://github.com/bobranten/Ext4Fsd
• https://github.com/macfuse/macfuse , https://github.com/gerard/ext4fuse (no update)

Example

1. sometimes foobar2000 randomly changes some settings and things break, I don't want to create duplicates (to save space) instead I want to track changes in it.
2. Same for chromium.

I say select because I don't want the imaging solution

These software have option to config directory using .ignore file

1. Kopia - .kopiaignore
2. Restic (hard to use)

• --exclude-file
• Ignore File: create a custom text file e.g., excludes.txt
• .exclude_me supports --exclude-if-present, which lets you skip any directory containing a specific file, such as .exclude_me.
• Uses gitignore-style syntax
• wrapper like Restatic - crawls directories before Restic starts and looks for .restaticignore files. It merges all those local files into one big exclude list and passes it to Restic automatically.

3. Duplicacy .duplicacy

https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/wiki/set

• While the official binary uses .duplicacy/filters, many users use scripts to generate that filter file by scanning for .cvsignore or custom ignore files in subdirectories., * https://forum.duplicacy.com/t/filters-include-exclude-patterns/1089/23, * https://github.com/TheBestPessimist/duplicacy-utils, * https://github.com/markfeit/duplicacy-scripts, * https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/issues/337, * https://forum.duplicacy.com/tag/filters

Rclone (Only ignores no option to config)

1. --exclude-if-present .rcloneignore (any name)
2. Global --exclude-from list.txt

Why is it only recommended for "Large-scale cloud copies" and "Google Drive/Dropbox/S3"?

Borg (Only ignores no option to config) .borgignore

FreeFileSync (Maybe global only).ffs_gui or .ffs_batch

How to set up like this with features -

1. Forever full backups/DeDuplication - Option Delete changes older than x. Where full-backup is taken once then incremental-s are merged. I have heard terms like, snapshot and CBT but don't understand it.
2. Save a "Ghost" for excluded data ie only Filename, Metadata and Folder-Structure.
3. "File Change Tracker" to see summary of what files are moved/deleted/renamed between 2 backups. Like Kopia's https://kopia.io/docs/reference/command-line/common/diff/
4. "File History" where I see previous version of files on the main disk. Like Kopia's kopia snapshot list <filename>

To Backup

• External and Internal Disk (files) to backup,
• all separately backup-ed to the same backup disk, .

Old Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1rzmg67/discussion/_backup/_solution/_comparison/

Duplicacy has a -nobackup-file

publication croisée depuis : https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/67080379

Hello, since it's complicated to index DHTs, I figured it'd be more efficient to build an index of fingerprints from real data once.

So I've been collecting releases hashes for this index. It can be used for various purposes:

• check the integrity of your own files (bit rot is a real thing)
• identify BTv2 torrent files that contain specific files (a database of torrent files is required)
• locate alive IPFS swarms to join more easily (no need to read all your data multiple times to recompute various CIDs yourself)

The collection contains around 1K releases and weights 40MB. I've prioritized scene Bluray rips of movies (1080p / 2160p). No infohash will be included, as these are not reproducible enough.

I'm using a basic script to add a new release (filename must match the official release name). I'm using others to discover scene releases in a filesystem; retrieve official release names from files using the srrdb api (crc32 search); collect torrents from Prowlarr and H&R them (although I'd prefer crowd-source directly from the community!).

The index is stored on git to allow collaboration. It is hosted using Radicale to avoid centralization and reduce hosting pressures.

If you are interested, join and add your own hashes to the collection in Radicle patches! (see instructions in the README)

Let me know what you think, suggest improvements or discuss similar projects you know about!

so i've been searching for a long time for an image tagging software, there are some tools out there, some are electron based so no thanks, then there's Hydrus which is actually very similar to what this does, but the GUI is horrible and the installation is way more complicated. I created a docker compose file and I was running Blombooru in a few minutes. So if anyone was looking for something like this to organize their system, please give it a try because it is really good!

Crossposted from https://thebrainbin.org/m/datahoarder@lemmy.world/t/1576555

After the original post, I ordered the generic reader I mentioned and it arrived today.

Testing around, and it can generate encrypted ISO files just fine with Linux Mint's default Disks program. No ddrescue needed!

Also apparently one of the discs I have had the key shipped with the reader revoked. But using the issue as an opportunity to test MakeMKV, I created a decrypted backup with it and tried opening the backup with VLC.

This decrypted backup seems to behave just like the encrypted ISOs I had been creating, thankfully, though further tests may be needed as I am still very unfamiliar with this revocation situation.

But all in all, I'm happy I can finally do my backups properly. In retrospect, the PS3 is too moody and slow even when the hardware is healthy, making backing stuff up with it a rather miserable process. Better something fast, more predictable, and that isn't tied to FAT32 with gambiarras applied to work with NTFS.

And on a side note, I also tested the reader with a DVD for the same purpose and it worked fine, so I guess it'll be working overtime. e.e"

1. Kopia .kopiaignore
2. Duplicacy .duplicacy
3. Borg .borgignore
4. FreeFileSync .ffs_ignore

How to set up like this with features -

1. Forever full backups/DeDuplication
2. Option Delete changes older than x.
3. How to Only backup Select Data, like only personal data,
4. Save a "Ghost" for other data (internet data not personal), which is only Filename, Metadata and Folder-Structure.
5. "File Change Tracker" to see summary of what files are moved/deleted/renamed.
6. "File History" where I see previous version of files.
7. Config from inside folders for disks (not OS) with e.g..backupconfigfile containing e.g. backup=1, or have select file backuped/not-backed-up.

To Backup

• External and Internal Disk (files) and OSes to backup,
• Backup select data from Disks,
• all separately backup-ed to the same backup disk, .

Old Post: https://lemmy.ml/post/44707979

Is it a viable option?

I've gotten a few discs, and up to some years prior, I'd use the PS3 to back them up. However, as its HDD is starting to fail (took it long enough e.e''), I'd been considering getting a bluray reader for dumping the ISOs, possibly a Wabcom 5-in-1 but still evaluating that part.

But as I am on Linux Mint, and I don't mind the ISOs being encrypted (iirc I'd use FOSS keys and they'd work fine), would ddrescue be enough for that, or would I need to use some other program, perhaps even some dedicated/paid one?

Also bonus question: I also got CDs and DVDs to backup. Would I be able to do it for them too?

Thanks in advance!