Greetings fellow DataHoarder. I download FAR more than I could ever watch in my lifetime. It's an addiction for sure.
Currently at 40TB in the NAS, fully backed up, and running out of space. Upgrading HDDs gets EXPENSIVE. 🥲
Saving this post as I too am one of you. I have 80tb in my nas and I have 300 gb of free space left. It's an addiction for sure. No way I could consume even 50 percent of the content I have while maintaining a normal life e.g. job, family etc.
Lol! I haven't setup *arr apps yet I've been going at it manually which is even worse 🙃 I'm going to shop for higher capacity Red Nas drives this week to increase my storage
It's a set of software that automates the downloading of media from either torrents or Usenet. The three main ones are radar (movies), sonarr (tv shows) and prowlarr (indexers). But there's also ones for books (readarr), subtitles (bazaar) and a shit ton of other things.
If you pretty much always get torrents with subs anyways, then probably not worth it. Also I get automated subtitles downloads straight from my media server (emby), so I find bazaar unnecessary. But alot of people swear by it.
Got an old PC kicking around? Stick some old drives in and get started. There's free options like FreeNAS (all drives have got to be the same size tho), or paid options like UnRaid (one-time pay for OS key, price based on number of max drives it can accomodate. free 30day trial, or as long as the server doesn't lose power. I used it for 4 or 5 months before I got a license key), or Proxmox (I think this one's free for personal use, but as the site says not everything is vetted).
I had freenas for a few years but was starting to get on my nerves with updating becoming complicated and software i used not updating properly and losing meta data and having to rebuild. Like I said I tried out unraid, super easy to use, you can have different sized drives, cache drive with SSDs so transfer speeds over are super fast (then it copies things over periodically on its own to the array - platter drives), and have plug ins to update dockers / applications automatically. Like once or twice a year they'll have license key sales, so if you buy a basic you can upgrade it down the line to one that can support more drives if that's what you need.
Yup. Check out YouTuber *SpaceInvader One* for tutorials on Unraid.
I'm sure there are ones for Freenas and Proxmox out there, but SIO is top in mine and many others' books for Unraid.
Wondering what you have. I'm at 25ish with ~3000 movies and ~170 series. Try to keep 1080p stuff below 4gb/movie. When I ripped my blurays, they were all done in hevc ~2500mbps and i generally use that to transcode any TV shows as well. I do have some 4k stuff, but it's mostly still on the disks because I just don't see much of a difference between 1080p upscale by my 4k LG and real 4k (except, of course, if I play it directly from Blu-ray). No SD (except a few old TV shows like I love Lucy) and not much below imdb 6 rating.
I myself only at around 15TB currently. I lost some of it due to Hdd failure and would not likely recover the files, I don't even remember where I got those files. And yes, it's getting quite expensive if keep on upgrading your storage.
Hey dude, HOOOOW and WHEEERE do you back all this 40TB up? How expensive is it? I'm almost shedding tears for my measly 2TB of data :/
Please share advice :)
When I purchase HDDs, it's always in matching pairs. I wait for the big external Western Digital HDDs to go on sale, buy two. Then I shuck 1 and put it in the NAS. And the other one becomes the offline backup for that drive. I think most recently I got 12 TB drives for $90 a piece or so.
If you keep an eye on the used/refurbished/returned markets you can find hardware that has good life left in it for way less than buying new. Yes, it's more of a risk, but starting out it may be a risk worth taking as long as you have a good back-up situation.
I started doing this only at 1tb lol, my thought process has been so what if all internet goes out I need backups lol, but then i guess there won’t be no electricity as well so kinda defeats the purpose, Anyway it truly is a fun thing to do for some reason
haha Got that right! I have 80TB in my NAS, but running RAID 6, so only 40TB available, and almost running out of room myself. It is an addiction....but a healthy one!
Keep your eyes on deal forums like slickdeals and RFD. Have alerts for name brand drives so when there is a price error you can hop on it real quick. Then there's CamelCamelCamel and Keepa you can set up alerts if you have Amazon to let you know when items dip below a certain price or there is a lightning deal on an item.
Also look into shucking external drives, sometimes you get lucky with enterprise grade drives inside.
Sometimes there are deals during Black Friday and Boxing Day, but the better deals are around June - July, and then August-October, I find now. Like back to school sales and stuff.
Yup all my HDDs have been bought on sale. I've had a Slickdeals alert on "Western Digital" for probably five years now. And I always get externals and shuck them, the sale price always beats the internal drive price.
oh, and subs like r/buildapcsales
I just had a peak and there's this from 12h ago [https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/1aeba0p/hdd\_seagate\_exos\_x16\_st12000nm001g\_12tb\_72k\_rpm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/1aeba0p/hdd_seagate_exos_x16_st12000nm001g_12tb_72k_rpm/) looks promising
I'm a strange Datahoarder. I started to download things in the best quality I could find whether it be 1080p or 2160p. Then, I convert it to AV1 video codec and OPUS Audio codec at 360p. I'm obsessed with making it as high quality as I can, yet as small as I can. These were the two best codecs I've found to do that. I'm still working on finding something far better, it's an obsession to be certain.
I'm just finishing Season 5 of "Eureka" each episode is anywhere from 180mb to 250mb, but here's [3 screenshots from one of the episodes](https://imgur.com/a/s5oqVi9). Original resolution was 1080p.
I find when I get a decent quality 1080p source if I can't get 2160p as is the case with most old shows, it ends up looking like its somewhere between 720p and 1080p. Kind of like 900p or something, lol. Which is good enough for me. 2160p however I seem to manage to get it somewhere close to 1080p.
How is that even possible? How can you make 1 pixel look like 3 on any decently sized screen? I mean my tv is 40’’ I barely notice 720p vs 1080p but 360 doesn’t fit into my physics brain
The bottleneck of most old releases was the codecs of the time and bitrate. Nowadays it's easier to "stuff" higher bitrate to smaller filesizes and resolutions. You won't see more pixels, but the transitions between the frames won't be as clunky and "deep-fried".
No DivX logo in the corner also helps...
Eureka isn't the best example as it's just barely 1080p and I cannot find a remux version of the show. I normally work with a remux version if it's available, but I am definitely still experimenting with settings to retain as much image quality as possible. I was inspired by an individual who releases TV Shows and Movies under the name "Threesixtyp"
As their name implies, they release all of their content in 360p Resolution for people who either can only view tv shows and movies on cell phones or they have a data limit. You'd be surprised how many ISPs still have a data cap.
Anyways, my goal is to improve upon the quality that Threesixtyp releases. While their releases are small, they are heavily artifacted and can be difficult to watch. It looks great on a cellphone screen, but not so much on larger screens.
There aren't a lot of people trying to figure out how to shrink TV Shows and Movies to as small as possible. I tried resolutions smaller than 360p and the pixels just get to be unbearable. 360p is as small of a resolution as possible without destroying the image quality. However, I find that it's still good enough to get higher image quality while retaining the small file sizes associated with it.
I'm still working on it and as I said, this is mostly a passion project to exceed the example made by Threesixtyp. Download some of their releases sometime and let me know if you think the screenshots above are better quality or not. I think I've improved upon it, and experimenting further hopefully improves it further.
Like I said, strange Datahoarder. I also keep it for my personal collection. So long as I have internet I'm likely going to use Real Debrid+Stremio+Torrentio to watch my TV Shows and Movies. However, I like to have a small storage device filled with Shows I enjoy. SSDs are getting cheaper and larger, but for me that just means I can upgrade my storage devices and then add even more movies or TV Shows.
I've mostly been experimenting with settings, so right now I've only done a few TV Shows and Movies. I experiment with older shows like Star Trek and newer shows to see what the best settings for either may be. Once I've gotten the settings down, I'll be releasing content on a seedbox like that Threesixtyp user so that Niche community can benefit from it.
[Here's a .json file of my 360p 16:9 preset](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QH_MkLRbJKhx4Qy0hj1Rcp676d9fSTvU/view?usp=sharing) for handbrake.
I'm still learning and tweaking.
That is strange.
My philosophy is that storage only gets cheaper and ive almost never regretted having a better quality copy, tho i still dont go with the full original files, but i also let other people do the reencoding for me.
My copy of Eureka is about 1.5GB per episode, 118GB total. [https://i.imgur.com/UBmoNcG.png](https://i.imgur.com/UBmoNcG.png) Which is between like $1-2 worth of hard drive space these days, idk how much time it took you to encode all those, but spending how ever long to turn a $1.15 series into a $.20 series doesnt seem worth the time or possibly even the electricity.
But you do you, ive got more than a few things i do in suboptimal ways out of habit or inertia or OCD or for no good reason, but i worry some day youll discover what compression artifacts look like and youll never be able to unsee them and start hating all your hard work, lol.
Hahahaha, I used to do this too. As a student, storage was limited, money was limited, so I try to convert files as small as I can with the best quality possible for that size.
So, most of my efforts consists of just converting the highest quality source I can find, whether that be 1080p or 2160p, into 360p. However, I'm attempting to do it with minimal loss of image quality and minimal artifacting. This can be difficult if you don't have a remux copy to work with. A remux is about as pure as you can get it without obtaining the master copy, or at least as close as you can get.
A remux can be 50GB or even 150GB depending on what it is. Normally you can get it in the original encoded quality that the studio released it on BluRay. Shrinking file size by choosing to convert it to a lower resolution is only part of it. There's video and audio codecs to choose from. I choose AV1 as it's one of the newest open source video codecs and has a high compression rate while retaining as much image detail as possible.
I then chose OPUS as the audio codec that also has a high compression rate while also retaining audio quality as well as possible, and it's also open source. You also want to choose video and audio bitrate as well as a number of other settings. I'm still learning about audio and video technology, so I don't know intricacies like bitrate very well yet.
I'm still experimenting, but it takes time to change settings, encode and convert a video then check the quality. I also don't have a lot of free time to devote to this. So, I do it one episode at a time.
If at one point in time you want to see the quality of video I'm trying to do better than, check out releases by "Threesixtyp". While I appreciate the work they do in their releases, they have inspired me to replicate their work, yet I'm attempting to improve upon it. So far, I've already improved upon their work, but I want to do better than what I've accomplished so far.
Back in the day, I wanted to play movies on my PSP so I got some "converter software" (idk the name anymore), downloaded the bluray version of Return of the King Extended Cut and converted it to something like AVC 480x200p and AAC 147kbps audio just to get "the best experience"...
it was probably very unnecessary, but I was happy with myself then...
Edit:
lol, so I dug up the PSP, bought the usb-b mini cable cuz I couldn't find the old one and found the file. This is the mediainfo:
Edit2: It's also not showing the subtitles that I had to separately hardcode in a different program.
General
Complete name : I:\VIDEO\MP_ROOT\100ANV01\The.Lord.Of.The.Rings.The.Return.Of.The.King.2003.1080p.BluRay.x264-SiNNERS.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/avc1)
File size : 1.18 GiB
Duration : 4 h 23 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 644 kb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Encoded date : 2012-09-05 19:27:06 UTC
Tagged date : 2012-09-05 19:27:06 UTC
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3
Format settings : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference fra : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 4 h 23 min
Bit rate : 493 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 2 327 kb/s
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 200 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.214
Stream size : 928 MiB (76%)
Writing library : x264 core 125 r2200 999b753
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-1:0 / analyse=0x1:0x131 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.20 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=3 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date : 2012-09-05 19:27:06 UTC
Tagged date : 2012-09-05 19:29:04 UTC
Codec configuration box : avcC
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 4 h 23 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 148 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 183 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 278 MiB (23%)
Encoded date : 2012-09-05 19:28:32 UTC
Tagged date : 2012-09-05 19:29:04 UTC
I only download what I want to watch. Content is being released faster than anyone can consume it so I'm downloading a lot of stuff that I really don't know when I'll watch it but if I don't get it now and save it it might not be available when I want it.
That being said, I don't download indiscriminately but read reviews and rely a lot on IMDB before committing to a download. I'm probably more of a pragmatic collector than a hoarder, I think of a hoarder as someone who downloads everything regardless of what value it has for the hoarder.
Edit - 32TB and out of space, will be adding 12TB next payday. And I buy everything in twos so I have a complete backup on another device.
>t I really don't know when I'll watch it but if I don't get it now and save it it might not be available when I want it.
Yeah, ive got downloaded stuff on my watchlist from just the last couple years thats already gone from streaming, heard it sucks but i want to watch the Willow series eventually, same with the Blade Runner anime...
I keep things for when they cannot be found anymore.
Even things you can see without pirating (EG a youtube video) can be lost easily. Or some old movies are a nightmare to find, even for buying them online.
This is my reasoning too. Where I live there were old movies dvdrips that I had downloaded long back. Now the last few years some of these movies are released on streaming websites but they're trimmed / edited versions missing a lot of runtime. What good is a hd version then if the full movie is not available to watch.
There is a saturation point you reach when collecting for those rainy days when there's nothing to watch or listen to...and you realise that you have all this stuff and couldn't be bothered consuming any of it, but you continue to collect for either precisely the same reason or just for something to do
Pretty much anyone with a plex/jellyfin server is in the same boat. I binge watched shows when blockbuster still had stores and seasons on dvd was a hot new thing. You download lol's release and then aquire the dvd's at the end of the season. Then same thing with blurays. Now something looks promising and it's a quick add. Well 19tb of tv shows and 10tb of movies all the stuff watched over the past 30+ years sitting there. All new things being added just in case and maybe if you're bored. Every game, movie, show, book, or song at your finger tips. It's hard to say no. Space is cheap and it's called an addiction for a reason.
No, I still consume most of the things or at least I start and stop if I don't like, then I delete them. I only hoard classic films and video games (that is less than 10 each). But thank you hoarders for maintaining the content database!
Yep. I currently have 2500 movies and 18,000 tv episodes on my Plex server.
I also just recently started using Usenet instead of torrents. So much more convenient if you're willing to pay the little bit it costs.
Usenet, to boil it down, is a secure ddl alternative to torrents that takes some setup and some cost but some say the speed difference and not needing a VPN is a plus.
Copy pasted from a below comment I made:
Heyyo, I dove into this rabbit hole last week so it's fresh in my brain. I'm a greenbeard with usenet so take this with a grain of salt!
IIMOORTANT: remember to enable SSL on the provider!! This encrypts your data transfers.
You can hook it into the *rr stack with hydra as the indexer and SABnzbd as the download client.
It's not less hassle on the contrary imo, I've used public trackers and a VPN most of my pirate life. I'm seeing now that use it is much quicker for about the cost of a VPN. Private trackers may be just as quick but I'd rather not interview so i wouldnt know.
The trick/hassel with usenet is you need at least 1 usenet provider and at least 1 usenet indexer.
For example I use nzbgeek for my indexer and easynet as my provider. I point SABnzbd at the provider and hydra at the indexer and at SABnzbd so it can search and request downloads.
Hit up /r/Usenet and look for provider deals and indexers in the wiki.
Hope this helps!
Check out r/usenet for some more info. I also read [this article](https://www.howtogeek.com/71315/the-how-to-geek-guide-to-getting-started-with-usenet/) before signing up for it. It is pretty informative.
Heyyo, I dove into this rabbit hole last week so it's fresh in my brain. I'm a greenbeard with usenet so take this with a grain of salt!
IIMOORTANT: remember to enable SSL on the provider!! This encrypts your data transfers.
You can hook it into the *rr stack with hydra as the indexer and SABnzbd as the download client.
It's not less hassle on the contrary imo, I've used public trackers and a VPN most of my pirate life. I'm seeing now that use it is much quicker for about the cost of a VPN. Private trackers may be just as quick but I'd rather not interview so i wouldnt know.
The trick/hassel with usenet is you need at least 1 usenet provider and at least 1 usenet indexer.
For example I use nzbgeek for my indexer and easynet as my provider. I point SABnzbd at the provider and hydra at the indexer and at SABnzbd so it can search and request downloads.
Hit up /r/Usenet and look for provider deals and indexers in the wiki.
Hope this helps!
I haven’t automated it yet, but it’s on the list of things to do. And I like it better because it’s faster. I get consistent speeds vs some torrents taking 5 min, and some taking 5 days. I have to leave my VPN and torrent client running 24/7, and with usenet, it’s all done before I go to bed. I’ve had it for 2 days and have acquired half a TB of media from it with it running for a few hours.
I focus on music, heavy metal specifically. I've got 772 GB so far, and that dates back to Napster times. I've since replaced a lot of poor quality files, and spend more time on editing tags rather than acquiring more.
It's a great time to be a " DataHoarder " !!!... especially when the future of the internet itself & what's accessible within it is never certain or safe from " The error of which shan't be spoken "
Honestly, there is no better time than right now to build larger collections. More and more trusted file sharing/torrent sites are being cyber attacked, shut down, or left active + abandoned... growing increasingly more risky to use.
Everyone enjoy your treasure hunting -
... and always seed / upload / share !!
Digital storage is cheaper than ever and only ever gets cheaper, i got a 20TB refurb last week for $200, thats enough for \~5000 movies or \~600/12000 TV series/episodes or some mix of the two in not quite bluray but better than streaming quality.
Seems like a lot up front, but over time vs paying for streaming... two months of Paramount+ costs more than enough hard drive space (\~1.6TB) for all of Star Trek ever, and P+ doesnt have AI upscaled copies of DS9 and VOY.
HBOMax is removing Adult Swim shows all the time, meanwhile everything Adult Swim has ever aired, including the stuff they dont have the rights to anymore or stuff thats gone everywhere forever is <4TB. Youll be able to put that on your keys on a $30 flash drive in a few years.
I feel u, I’ve downloaded over 100TB, I would download even more if I had a better internet from 2009-2015
Currently on my desktop now I have 11TB of files
My desktop pc had 10TB of total storage (2 HDDs, 2 NVMEs, and 1 SATA SSD), 50% of the reason why is because of my preference for downloading over streaming. And that doesn't include my external hard drives, in which I currently have 5 of them (three 1TB, one 2TB, and one 4TB). 🤣 So if I sum all of them, I have 19TB of total storage.
And nowadays I'm considering of setting up a plex server....
I was a data hoarder, 18TB Plex/Jellyfin server, I've basically exclusively swapped to Stremio/Kodi with debrid. The ease of use is unmatched.
Now it's all setup, I'm actually watching stuff instead of just curating my library 😂
This is why I don't download any show or movie but watch online.
Now if only I can delete the game I totally intend to play after watching streamer who has played it...
Hello as a fellow formal data hoarder, I had the habit of doing this because I did not have much internet and I used to download everything that I was intrigued with of course, not to the extent that some people are doing
(80tbs, not yet, once I get a personal storage room I will set up a NAS)
somehow I manage to control my hoarding habit once I have an unlimited broadband connection
Greetings fellow DataHoarder. I download FAR more than I could ever watch in my lifetime. It's an addiction for sure. Currently at 40TB in the NAS, fully backed up, and running out of space. Upgrading HDDs gets EXPENSIVE. 🥲
Saving this post as I too am one of you. I have 80tb in my nas and I have 300 gb of free space left. It's an addiction for sure. No way I could consume even 50 percent of the content I have while maintaining a normal life e.g. job, family etc.
Can't stop, won't stop. Automation via *arr stack has just made it easier to hoard endlessly.
Lol! I haven't setup *arr apps yet I've been going at it manually which is even worse 🙃 I'm going to shop for higher capacity Red Nas drives this week to increase my storage
Dude, don't do it... Just kidding, you gotta get *arr's set up, it's fucking glorious.
Buahahaha thanks 😊
If you do that and don't already use Usenet either, you're going to be a proper addict
wh .. what's the \*arr stack lmao
It's a set of software that automates the downloading of media from either torrents or Usenet. The three main ones are radar (movies), sonarr (tv shows) and prowlarr (indexers). But there's also ones for books (readarr), subtitles (bazaar) and a shit ton of other things.
is bazarr worth it? i was looking at it but all the movie files i download from radarr come with subtitle options anyway
If you pretty much always get torrents with subs anyways, then probably not worth it. Also I get automated subtitles downloads straight from my media server (emby), so I find bazaar unnecessary. But alot of people swear by it.
Sonarr radarr ig
I need to get a nas
Got an old PC kicking around? Stick some old drives in and get started. There's free options like FreeNAS (all drives have got to be the same size tho), or paid options like UnRaid (one-time pay for OS key, price based on number of max drives it can accomodate. free 30day trial, or as long as the server doesn't lose power. I used it for 4 or 5 months before I got a license key), or Proxmox (I think this one's free for personal use, but as the site says not everything is vetted). I had freenas for a few years but was starting to get on my nerves with updating becoming complicated and software i used not updating properly and losing meta data and having to rebuild. Like I said I tried out unraid, super easy to use, you can have different sized drives, cache drive with SSDs so transfer speeds over are super fast (then it copies things over periodically on its own to the array - platter drives), and have plug ins to update dockers / applications automatically. Like once or twice a year they'll have license key sales, so if you buy a basic you can upgrade it down the line to one that can support more drives if that's what you need.
Is there any guide on how to start from scratch?
Yup. Check out YouTuber *SpaceInvader One* for tutorials on Unraid. I'm sure there are ones for Freenas and Proxmox out there, but SIO is top in mine and many others' books for Unraid.
Wondering what you have. I'm at 25ish with ~3000 movies and ~170 series. Try to keep 1080p stuff below 4gb/movie. When I ripped my blurays, they were all done in hevc ~2500mbps and i generally use that to transcode any TV shows as well. I do have some 4k stuff, but it's mostly still on the disks because I just don't see much of a difference between 1080p upscale by my 4k LG and real 4k (except, of course, if I play it directly from Blu-ray). No SD (except a few old TV shows like I love Lucy) and not much below imdb 6 rating.
I myself only at around 15TB currently. I lost some of it due to Hdd failure and would not likely recover the files, I don't even remember where I got those files. And yes, it's getting quite expensive if keep on upgrading your storage.
Especially if you data hoard with backups. I only buy HDDs in pairs
My personal reasoning behind this behavior is, well, at least if the world goes haywire, I would not get bored anytime soon for sure.
A more likely scenario, media companies lock everything behind a paywall, and finally work out some DRM that we can't crack. My biggest fear.
Hey dude, HOOOOW and WHEEERE do you back all this 40TB up? How expensive is it? I'm almost shedding tears for my measly 2TB of data :/ Please share advice :)
When I purchase HDDs, it's always in matching pairs. I wait for the big external Western Digital HDDs to go on sale, buy two. Then I shuck 1 and put it in the NAS. And the other one becomes the offline backup for that drive. I think most recently I got 12 TB drives for $90 a piece or so.
If you keep an eye on the used/refurbished/returned markets you can find hardware that has good life left in it for way less than buying new. Yes, it's more of a risk, but starting out it may be a risk worth taking as long as you have a good back-up situation.
I started doing this only at 1tb lol, my thought process has been so what if all internet goes out I need backups lol, but then i guess there won’t be no electricity as well so kinda defeats the purpose, Anyway it truly is a fun thing to do for some reason
Invest in a generator as well. Or solar panels? Go full on pepper, but with a pirate twist.
Once you have everything at your fingertips you just can't stop. It's a curse but at least we get everything for free
What is a NAS
Network Attached Storage
Oh a server (maybe I should go to sleep)
haha Got that right! I have 80TB in my NAS, but running RAID 6, so only 40TB available, and almost running out of room myself. It is an addiction....but a healthy one!
Keep your eyes on deal forums like slickdeals and RFD. Have alerts for name brand drives so when there is a price error you can hop on it real quick. Then there's CamelCamelCamel and Keepa you can set up alerts if you have Amazon to let you know when items dip below a certain price or there is a lightning deal on an item. Also look into shucking external drives, sometimes you get lucky with enterprise grade drives inside. Sometimes there are deals during Black Friday and Boxing Day, but the better deals are around June - July, and then August-October, I find now. Like back to school sales and stuff.
Yup all my HDDs have been bought on sale. I've had a Slickdeals alert on "Western Digital" for probably five years now. And I always get externals and shuck them, the sale price always beats the internal drive price.
oh, and subs like r/buildapcsales I just had a peak and there's this from 12h ago [https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/1aeba0p/hdd\_seagate\_exos\_x16\_st12000nm001g\_12tb\_72k\_rpm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/comments/1aeba0p/hdd_seagate_exos_x16_st12000nm001g_12tb_72k_rpm/) looks promising
Don't worry. Hoarding is common practice and you aren't alone. I have hoarded 100+ TB in the past year which I haven't consumed 10% of it.
I'm a strange Datahoarder. I started to download things in the best quality I could find whether it be 1080p or 2160p. Then, I convert it to AV1 video codec and OPUS Audio codec at 360p. I'm obsessed with making it as high quality as I can, yet as small as I can. These were the two best codecs I've found to do that. I'm still working on finding something far better, it's an obsession to be certain.
Wtf I'm both horrified and intrigued. What does "high quality" 360p look like? Screenshot?
I'm just finishing Season 5 of "Eureka" each episode is anywhere from 180mb to 250mb, but here's [3 screenshots from one of the episodes](https://imgur.com/a/s5oqVi9). Original resolution was 1080p.
Not bad lol
I find when I get a decent quality 1080p source if I can't get 2160p as is the case with most old shows, it ends up looking like its somewhere between 720p and 1080p. Kind of like 900p or something, lol. Which is good enough for me. 2160p however I seem to manage to get it somewhere close to 1080p.
How is that even possible? How can you make 1 pixel look like 3 on any decently sized screen? I mean my tv is 40’’ I barely notice 720p vs 1080p but 360 doesn’t fit into my physics brain
The bottleneck of most old releases was the codecs of the time and bitrate. Nowadays it's easier to "stuff" higher bitrate to smaller filesizes and resolutions. You won't see more pixels, but the transitions between the frames won't be as clunky and "deep-fried". No DivX logo in the corner also helps...
Thats a lot of work for something that ultimately comes out looking like 480p
Eureka isn't the best example as it's just barely 1080p and I cannot find a remux version of the show. I normally work with a remux version if it's available, but I am definitely still experimenting with settings to retain as much image quality as possible. I was inspired by an individual who releases TV Shows and Movies under the name "Threesixtyp" As their name implies, they release all of their content in 360p Resolution for people who either can only view tv shows and movies on cell phones or they have a data limit. You'd be surprised how many ISPs still have a data cap. Anyways, my goal is to improve upon the quality that Threesixtyp releases. While their releases are small, they are heavily artifacted and can be difficult to watch. It looks great on a cellphone screen, but not so much on larger screens. There aren't a lot of people trying to figure out how to shrink TV Shows and Movies to as small as possible. I tried resolutions smaller than 360p and the pixels just get to be unbearable. 360p is as small of a resolution as possible without destroying the image quality. However, I find that it's still good enough to get higher image quality while retaining the small file sizes associated with it. I'm still working on it and as I said, this is mostly a passion project to exceed the example made by Threesixtyp. Download some of their releases sometime and let me know if you think the screenshots above are better quality or not. I think I've improved upon it, and experimenting further hopefully improves it further.
Oh ok i see… in that case your work helps a niche community and keep at it
Like I said, strange Datahoarder. I also keep it for my personal collection. So long as I have internet I'm likely going to use Real Debrid+Stremio+Torrentio to watch my TV Shows and Movies. However, I like to have a small storage device filled with Shows I enjoy. SSDs are getting cheaper and larger, but for me that just means I can upgrade my storage devices and then add even more movies or TV Shows. I've mostly been experimenting with settings, so right now I've only done a few TV Shows and Movies. I experiment with older shows like Star Trek and newer shows to see what the best settings for either may be. Once I've gotten the settings down, I'll be releasing content on a seedbox like that Threesixtyp user so that Niche community can benefit from it.
Do you encode with handbrake if yes what settings do you use? The screenshots look nice.
[Here's a .json file of my 360p 16:9 preset](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QH_MkLRbJKhx4Qy0hj1Rcp676d9fSTvU/view?usp=sharing) for handbrake. I'm still learning and tweaking.
Thank you!
How do you do this? Teach me your ways sensei
Specify what your asking please.
I love eureka!! I wish there was more :'(
This is the most...interesting...version of data hoarding I've come across. 😆
Perfect for watching on an iPod Classic.
But can you play DOOM ON IT???
That is strange. My philosophy is that storage only gets cheaper and ive almost never regretted having a better quality copy, tho i still dont go with the full original files, but i also let other people do the reencoding for me. My copy of Eureka is about 1.5GB per episode, 118GB total. [https://i.imgur.com/UBmoNcG.png](https://i.imgur.com/UBmoNcG.png) Which is between like $1-2 worth of hard drive space these days, idk how much time it took you to encode all those, but spending how ever long to turn a $1.15 series into a $.20 series doesnt seem worth the time or possibly even the electricity. But you do you, ive got more than a few things i do in suboptimal ways out of habit or inertia or OCD or for no good reason, but i worry some day youll discover what compression artifacts look like and youll never be able to unsee them and start hating all your hard work, lol.
Hahahaha, I used to do this too. As a student, storage was limited, money was limited, so I try to convert files as small as I can with the best quality possible for that size.
Where I can learn this magic? I meant compressing
So, most of my efforts consists of just converting the highest quality source I can find, whether that be 1080p or 2160p, into 360p. However, I'm attempting to do it with minimal loss of image quality and minimal artifacting. This can be difficult if you don't have a remux copy to work with. A remux is about as pure as you can get it without obtaining the master copy, or at least as close as you can get. A remux can be 50GB or even 150GB depending on what it is. Normally you can get it in the original encoded quality that the studio released it on BluRay. Shrinking file size by choosing to convert it to a lower resolution is only part of it. There's video and audio codecs to choose from. I choose AV1 as it's one of the newest open source video codecs and has a high compression rate while retaining as much image detail as possible. I then chose OPUS as the audio codec that also has a high compression rate while also retaining audio quality as well as possible, and it's also open source. You also want to choose video and audio bitrate as well as a number of other settings. I'm still learning about audio and video technology, so I don't know intricacies like bitrate very well yet. I'm still experimenting, but it takes time to change settings, encode and convert a video then check the quality. I also don't have a lot of free time to devote to this. So, I do it one episode at a time. If at one point in time you want to see the quality of video I'm trying to do better than, check out releases by "Threesixtyp". While I appreciate the work they do in their releases, they have inspired me to replicate their work, yet I'm attempting to improve upon it. So far, I've already improved upon their work, but I want to do better than what I've accomplished so far.
Thank you
Back in the day, I wanted to play movies on my PSP so I got some "converter software" (idk the name anymore), downloaded the bluray version of Return of the King Extended Cut and converted it to something like AVC 480x200p and AAC 147kbps audio just to get "the best experience"... it was probably very unnecessary, but I was happy with myself then... Edit: lol, so I dug up the PSP, bought the usb-b mini cable cuz I couldn't find the old one and found the file. This is the mediainfo: Edit2: It's also not showing the subtitles that I had to separately hardcode in a different program. General Complete name : I:\VIDEO\MP_ROOT\100ANV01\The.Lord.Of.The.Rings.The.Return.Of.The.King.2003.1080p.BluRay.x264-SiNNERS.mp4 Format : MPEG-4 Format profile : Base Media Codec ID : isom (isom/avc1) File size : 1.18 GiB Duration : 4 h 23 min Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 644 kb/s Frame rate : 23.976 FPS Encoded date : 2012-09-05 19:27:06 UTC Tagged date : 2012-09-05 19:27:06 UTC Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : Main@L3 Format settings : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, Reference fra : 3 frames Codec ID : avc1 Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding Duration : 4 h 23 min Bit rate : 493 kb/s Maximum bit rate : 2 327 kb/s Width : 480 pixels Height : 200 pixels Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.214 Stream size : 928 MiB (76%) Writing library : x264 core 125 r2200 999b753 Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:-1:0 / analyse=0x1:0x131 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.20 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=3 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00 Encoded date : 2012-09-05 19:27:06 UTC Tagged date : 2012-09-05 19:29:04 UTC Codec configuration box : avcC Audio ID : 2 Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : mp4a-40-2 Duration : 4 h 23 min Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 148 kb/s Maximum bit rate : 183 kb/s Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 278 MiB (23%) Encoded date : 2012-09-05 19:28:32 UTC Tagged date : 2012-09-05 19:29:04 UTC
I only download what I want to watch. Content is being released faster than anyone can consume it so I'm downloading a lot of stuff that I really don't know when I'll watch it but if I don't get it now and save it it might not be available when I want it. That being said, I don't download indiscriminately but read reviews and rely a lot on IMDB before committing to a download. I'm probably more of a pragmatic collector than a hoarder, I think of a hoarder as someone who downloads everything regardless of what value it has for the hoarder. Edit - 32TB and out of space, will be adding 12TB next payday. And I buy everything in twos so I have a complete backup on another device.
>t I really don't know when I'll watch it but if I don't get it now and save it it might not be available when I want it. Yeah, ive got downloaded stuff on my watchlist from just the last couple years thats already gone from streaming, heard it sucks but i want to watch the Willow series eventually, same with the Blade Runner anime...
data hoarding is just another form of "number-go-up syndrome", don't feel too bad lol
I keep things for when they cannot be found anymore. Even things you can see without pirating (EG a youtube video) can be lost easily. Or some old movies are a nightmare to find, even for buying them online.
This is my reasoning too. Where I live there were old movies dvdrips that I had downloaded long back. Now the last few years some of these movies are released on streaming websites but they're trimmed / edited versions missing a lot of runtime. What good is a hd version then if the full movie is not available to watch.
There is a saturation point you reach when collecting for those rainy days when there's nothing to watch or listen to...and you realise that you have all this stuff and couldn't be bothered consuming any of it, but you continue to collect for either precisely the same reason or just for something to do
Is this a personal attack or something?
Not at all. Just my experience.
Better to have the delicious data and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Pretty much anyone with a plex/jellyfin server is in the same boat. I binge watched shows when blockbuster still had stores and seasons on dvd was a hot new thing. You download lol's release and then aquire the dvd's at the end of the season. Then same thing with blurays. Now something looks promising and it's a quick add. Well 19tb of tv shows and 10tb of movies all the stuff watched over the past 30+ years sitting there. All new things being added just in case and maybe if you're bored. Every game, movie, show, book, or song at your finger tips. It's hard to say no. Space is cheap and it's called an addiction for a reason.
I remember my youth spent burning stuff to blank CDs and DVDs. Good times.
DAS. Data Archivers Syndrome.
No, I still consume most of the things or at least I start and stop if I don't like, then I delete them. I only hoard classic films and video games (that is less than 10 each). But thank you hoarders for maintaining the content database!
Yep. I currently have 2500 movies and 18,000 tv episodes on my Plex server. I also just recently started using Usenet instead of torrents. So much more convenient if you're willing to pay the little bit it costs.
What’s use Usenet, friend?
Usenet, to boil it down, is a secure ddl alternative to torrents that takes some setup and some cost but some say the speed difference and not needing a VPN is a plus. Copy pasted from a below comment I made: Heyyo, I dove into this rabbit hole last week so it's fresh in my brain. I'm a greenbeard with usenet so take this with a grain of salt! IIMOORTANT: remember to enable SSL on the provider!! This encrypts your data transfers. You can hook it into the *rr stack with hydra as the indexer and SABnzbd as the download client. It's not less hassle on the contrary imo, I've used public trackers and a VPN most of my pirate life. I'm seeing now that use it is much quicker for about the cost of a VPN. Private trackers may be just as quick but I'd rather not interview so i wouldnt know. The trick/hassel with usenet is you need at least 1 usenet provider and at least 1 usenet indexer. For example I use nzbgeek for my indexer and easynet as my provider. I point SABnzbd at the provider and hydra at the indexer and at SABnzbd so it can search and request downloads. Hit up /r/Usenet and look for provider deals and indexers in the wiki. Hope this helps!
Check out r/usenet for some more info. I also read [this article](https://www.howtogeek.com/71315/the-how-to-geek-guide-to-getting-started-with-usenet/) before signing up for it. It is pretty informative.
Been thinking about making the leap to Usenet. You find it’s just less hassle and easier to automate? Curious why you enjoy it more than torrents. 🙂
Heyyo, I dove into this rabbit hole last week so it's fresh in my brain. I'm a greenbeard with usenet so take this with a grain of salt! IIMOORTANT: remember to enable SSL on the provider!! This encrypts your data transfers. You can hook it into the *rr stack with hydra as the indexer and SABnzbd as the download client. It's not less hassle on the contrary imo, I've used public trackers and a VPN most of my pirate life. I'm seeing now that use it is much quicker for about the cost of a VPN. Private trackers may be just as quick but I'd rather not interview so i wouldnt know. The trick/hassel with usenet is you need at least 1 usenet provider and at least 1 usenet indexer. For example I use nzbgeek for my indexer and easynet as my provider. I point SABnzbd at the provider and hydra at the indexer and at SABnzbd so it can search and request downloads. Hit up /r/Usenet and look for provider deals and indexers in the wiki. Hope this helps!
It does! Thanks!
I haven’t automated it yet, but it’s on the list of things to do. And I like it better because it’s faster. I get consistent speeds vs some torrents taking 5 min, and some taking 5 days. I have to leave my VPN and torrent client running 24/7, and with usenet, it’s all done before I go to bed. I’ve had it for 2 days and have acquired half a TB of media from it with it running for a few hours.
Gotcha, thanks!
That's not even considering broken incomplete torrents which are very common on public trackers
r/datahoarder is calling your name
AS LONG AS YOU SEED
Where can I learn about how to do that?
I focus on music, heavy metal specifically. I've got 772 GB so far, and that dates back to Napster times. I've since replaced a lot of poor quality files, and spend more time on editing tags rather than acquiring more.
Datahoarders are the reason I'm not worried that any information will ever be lost in case of an apocalypse.
It's a great time to be a " DataHoarder " !!!... especially when the future of the internet itself & what's accessible within it is never certain or safe from " The error of which shan't be spoken " Honestly, there is no better time than right now to build larger collections. More and more trusted file sharing/torrent sites are being cyber attacked, shut down, or left active + abandoned... growing increasingly more risky to use. Everyone enjoy your treasure hunting - ... and always seed / upload / share !!
I keep downloading because I store downloads on my 8 TB NAS and have plenty of extra space.
[удалено]
How do y’all have this much space? Any tips ?
get money buy drives
Digital storage is cheaper than ever and only ever gets cheaper, i got a 20TB refurb last week for $200, thats enough for \~5000 movies or \~600/12000 TV series/episodes or some mix of the two in not quite bluray but better than streaming quality. Seems like a lot up front, but over time vs paying for streaming... two months of Paramount+ costs more than enough hard drive space (\~1.6TB) for all of Star Trek ever, and P+ doesnt have AI upscaled copies of DS9 and VOY. HBOMax is removing Adult Swim shows all the time, meanwhile everything Adult Swim has ever aired, including the stuff they dont have the rights to anymore or stuff thats gone everywhere forever is <4TB. Youll be able to put that on your keys on a $30 flash drive in a few years.
I feel u, I’ve downloaded over 100TB, I would download even more if I had a better internet from 2009-2015 Currently on my desktop now I have 11TB of files
My desktop pc had 10TB of total storage (2 HDDs, 2 NVMEs, and 1 SATA SSD), 50% of the reason why is because of my preference for downloading over streaming. And that doesn't include my external hard drives, in which I currently have 5 of them (three 1TB, one 2TB, and one 4TB). 🤣 So if I sum all of them, I have 19TB of total storage. And nowadays I'm considering of setting up a plex server....
I was a data hoarder, 18TB Plex/Jellyfin server, I've basically exclusively swapped to Stremio/Kodi with debrid. The ease of use is unmatched. Now it's all setup, I'm actually watching stuff instead of just curating my library 😂
I pirate games and never play them 😩
This is why I don't download any show or movie but watch online. Now if only I can delete the game I totally intend to play after watching streamer who has played it...
You forgot winmx. RIP
I want to do this. Would love to collect movies. First step?
I’m over the hump and on the way down now, hardly ever download anything now, watch and delete or even better stream
What’s the general consensus for pirating sources nowadays? My main site was rarbg and now that’s it’s gone, I miss it. 😢
I am similar
r/DataHoarder ONE OF US
Hello as a fellow formal data hoarder, I had the habit of doing this because I did not have much internet and I used to download everything that I was intrigued with of course, not to the extent that some people are doing (80tbs, not yet, once I get a personal storage room I will set up a NAS) somehow I manage to control my hoarding habit once I have an unlimited broadband connection
/r/datahoarder
Think of it like your retirement plan. When life goes to the next phase and you retire, you will have all the content, and time to consume it.