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by squigz 710 days ago
You are never going to have a physical copy of the archive. It's nearly a petabyte in size.
1 comments

I know several datahoarders that have at least 1PB, also archive.org grows by that much at least every day
I assumed that GP was an average person who doesn't have a storage array sitting at home. I'm not really sure why the IA is relevant here
1 PB of disk space would cost about $10K at this point in time. Not exactly unattainable. Looks like it would fit in a volume of space about the size of a standard refrigerator.

I'd be OK with both requirements.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me to suggest that an average person would spend $10,000+ (and the time to maintain it) on a pirate archive, hence my comment.

On the other hand, contributing a TB or two to a torrent swarm is much more feasible for most people.

In any case, if you're okay with that, you should do it. Please report back in 6 months with how it's going.

In any case, if you're okay with that, you should do it. Please report back in 6 months with how it's going.

Point being, if I tried to torrent the whole thing, it probably would take 6 months, and would likely get me booted from my ISP and/or sued. I would much rather buy a set of hard drives with the contents already loaded. Or tapes, as userbinator suggests.

(And as for the hypothetical "average person" you keep citing, I don't see anyone meeting that description around here.)

> I would much rather buy a set of hard drives with the contents already loaded. Or tapes, as userbinator suggests.

And my point is that this is an absurd suggestion. I shouldn't have to explain why a shadow library shouldn't be selling (tens of) thousands of dollars worth of hard drives containing pirated content. Beyond that, and what I was getting at earlier, is that maintaining a 1PB storage array at home isn't exactly easy, or cheap.

> It doesn't seem reasonable to me to suggest that an average person would spend $10,000+

You're right, and I was not trying to suggest that. I was merely disagreeing with "You are never going to" because I know there are people who are reading this who can and maybe will.

1PB is well beyond the point at which a tape drive and a bunch of tapes will be cheaper than hard drives, and likely more reliable.
For archival, yes. Not if you want to access the thing with any frequency.