Ima do this finally (consolidate old HDD backups)!

[xSauronx]

The problem with deleting data is that it's so difficult to free up any meaingful amount of space. Sure I can delete this 20MB .zip file, but what does it matter? So you end up having to comb through hundreds of thousands of files for it to add up to a significant amount of data.

its faster if you delete the porn

 

[Pulsar]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Works pretty well. It got about 99% of my songs correct. Make sure you keep a backup so that anything goes wrong, you know =).

 

[ElFenix]

just 5 drives laying around waiting to be consolidated? pfft, amateur.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have a lot of drives I need to destroy actually. I should make that a project some day, using thermite.

 

[keird]

I'm playing XCOM: Terror From the Deep tonight because I attached an old HDD. Enjoy your youth old friend.

 

[sdifox]

I have a lot of drives I need to destroy actually. I should make that a project some day, using thermite.

Why? Rip out the magnets then frisbee the platters.

 

[MustISO]

I've been putting off a similar project for years. I have maybe 20-30 hard drives and I have no idea what's on them. Most likely don't need the data but it's possible a few have music collections or old photos. At some point I'm going to hook them all up and transfer the data I want to keep to a large single drive and then back that drive up.

 

[notposting]

Yessssssssssss

Storage is so cheap. Not like it fills a basement. Hoard it all I say!

I'm playing XCOM: Terror From the Deep tonight because I attached an old HDD. Enjoy your youth old friend.

I have all my work (I'm a scientific programmer) back to the 60s backed up on mylar punch tape, from the 70s on eight inch floppies (Dec), the 80's on various mini-tap drives and the 90s various media storage including Iomega Zip drives. I would migrate my older code to the newer storage method except my mylar punch tape from the 60s which I would need a teletype to read into a more modern. By the time CDs were proven I had migrated all of my code to a duo-back of CDs, one keep at work and one keep at home (About fourty CDs for the date with a equal back up at a different location. I moved this stuff to DVDs and now have about 16 (each two copies one at a friends house) and all zipped on a five TB on line. I still have all the original media and devices boxes away. You'd be surprised when you might need a algorithm you coded in 1992 with the help of a russian speaking post docurate because Chebyschev's work was never translated from russian to english. I can lay my hands on the original K&R C code I wrote in two minutes and convert it to C#, Java, Pearl or whatever I'm using at the moment. I hate to have to repeat a development process.

I suspect not everone has a need for earlier development code or old data; as my EE friend says "if you haven't used it in the last two years, you don't need it anymore." While I think she needs to add the modifier probably won't need it.

While I am surprised how much I relie on old code (tight code still requires pointers and creae data access, especially if it needs to fit on a 2K rom) and I do so damn much windows net programming nowadays it helps to review what I did 30 years ago in FORTRAN or K&R C to get back to speed on old talents.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Why? Rip out the magnets then frisbee the platters.

Oh that has already been done, I only destroy the PCB (in case there's any kind of cached data I'm not aware of) and the platters. I have all the platters in a stack somewhere. The empty cases get recycled and magnets are fun to play with.

 

[tcsenter]

just 5 drives laying around waiting to be consolidated? pfft, amateur.

NO movies or games! Only vids I have are some lectures, guitar tutorials, some podcasts, etc. My music library is only about 5GB and I cleaned that up a couple years ago. A lot of photos 90% of which I won't keep. I'll take 30 photos of the same thing or shot, just to get one or two of them that I like, and then I don't delete the others.

 

[edro]

A lot of photos 90% of which I won't keep. I'll take 30 photos of the same thing or shot, just to get one or two of them that I like, and then I don't delete the others.

I just got done doing that. I have (like many others) had digital cameras since ~1996. I take all the family photos.
It's a long process, but you get in the swing of it after the first few thousand.
You toggle forward/backward quickly to compare and delete the bad ones.
Her eyes are slightly squinted, DELETE!

You get so used to deleting bad ones, you inevitably delete a good one... so you have to fish it out of the Recycle Bin.

I cut my photo collection down from 90gb to 40gb.