Contents1 Introduction2 What is JPEG XL (JXL)?3 Why JPEG XL over AVIF or WebP or HEIC?4 Finding the best software for converting the images from JPEG to JPEG XL5 Using libjxl to convert (transcode) JPEG to JPEG XL6 Converting JPEG XL back to legacy JPEG7 Batch conversion of JPG to JXL with libjxl8 Summary (tl;dr) … Read more
Contents1 Introduction2 RAID 6 for redundancy2.1 Advantages2.2 Disadvantages2.3 Use cases2.3.1 A Webserver2.3.2 Data-hoarding / Archiving2.4 RAID 6 real-world example3 RAID 53.1 Reasons multiple disks fail in a RAID 5 array3.1.1 Similar ages and power-on hours of disks in the array3.1.2 Increased stress when rebuilding the array3.1.3 High capacity / large disks3.2 Advantages3.3 Disadvantages3.4 Use Cases3.5 … Read more
Contents1 Introduction2 Manufacturer’s use of hard drive colors2.1 Western Digital (WD)2.1.1 Green2.1.2 Blue2.1.3 Purple2.1.4 Red2.1.4.1 Red (Standard)2.1.4.2 Red Plus2.1.4.3 Red Pro2.1.5 Black2.1.6 Gold2.1.7 White / Ultrastar2.2 Seagate2.2.1 Green: Barracuda2.2.2 Red: Ironwolf2.2.3 Orange: Firecuda2.2.4 Blue: Skyhawk2.3 Toshiba2.3.1 Red2.3.2 Gold2.3.3 Silver2.3.4 Green2.3.5 Blue2.4 Summary Introduction If you’re in the market for a new hard drive (for data-hoarding … Read more
For the vast majority of data-hoarders, hard drives are their preferred storage medium. As you might expect, it’s not unusual for someone dedicated to the data-hoarding hobby to have several hard drives in use at any one time. The question that we see asked over and over again is “when should I replace my hard … Read more
Contents1 Introduction2 Overview3 Windows3.1 Confirm that the new hard drive isn’t showing3.2 Open “This PC”3.3 Check that the drive isn’t listed3.4 Launching Disk Management3.5 Rescan Disks3.6 Initialize the new disk3.7 Create a new volume4 Linux4.1 Getting the ID of the new disk with lsblk4.2 Partitioning the new disk with cfdisk4.3 Formatting the new partition with … Read more
Contents1 Introduction2 List of hard drive alternatives2.1 Solid State Drives (SSD)2.2 Cloud Storage2.3 USB Flash Drives2.4 RAID2.5 NAS2.6 Optical Disc2.7 Tape3 Summary Introduction If you’ve spent any time browsing the various forums or subreddits dedicated to data-hoarding, you’ve likely seen this common question being asked: “What are the best hard drive alternatives?”. This is often … Read more
Introduction I’ve been regularly buying hard disk drives for the best part of three decades. Over this time, the capacities have increased tremendously. It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate just how much hard disk capacities have increased over this time. Whilst many data-hoarders are well aware of current drive capacities, there’s still some confusion from the … Read more
As you may imagine, as a data-hoarder, I’ve owned dozens, if not hundreds of hard drives over the years. Each time one of my hard drives reaches capacity, its contents are copied to a new drive, and the old drive is removed from the computer. I’ve mentioned in the past that I don’t like to … Read more
Introduction I’ve been reading good things about Open Media Vault (OMV) for a while now, and have decided it’s time to give it a try for myself. I have a new Proxmox host that isn’t currently doing a great deal so I’ve decided to spin up a new VM and install OVM there. Until this … Read more
Preamble Many people have difficulty deleting data from their systems, even when this data is outdated and still widely available online. If you are one of these people, you may in fact be a digital data-hoarder. For example, if you’ve watched last night’s episode of Coronation Street, do you delete it from your Plex or … Read more