Instead of having to do an Operating system setup with a cloud provider, maybe another cloud backup service would work. Something like Backblaze can receive your Google files. Then you can download from Backblaze at your leisure.

https://help.goodsync.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003419711-Backblaze-B2

Or use the filters by date to limit the amount of takeout data that’s created? Then repeat with different filters for the next chunk.

Used servers/workstations are likely more reliable than new consumer.

They were very likely kept temperature controlled, have ECC, and are actually known working instead of something like Asus. If I remember correctly, PC mortality is very high the first 6 months, goes down to near zero for 5 years, then starts going back up.

Replace the SSD/hard drive and you are good. You might not even have to do that. I checked the stats on the SSD that came with my used Lenovo workstation and it had like 20 hours on it.

How small? How many drives? I bought several used Lenovo P330 E2276G for my servers.

The Intel CPU has great low power GPU for video encoding/decoding for video streaming.

The Xeon ECC ram gives long term reliability. It’s important if you leave your PC on 24/7 for years at a time.

Smaller doesn’t need to be more complex. 3.5" drives weren’t more complex than 5.25" drives.

A smaller head means a smaller drive actuator. Less mass and smaller size means it can compensate much quicker in response to vibration detection.

Back when full height 5.25" drives were the norm, you couldn’t pick up your PC while running without causing an error. Those tiny CF card sized drives failed but took extreme abuse compared to big drives.

Ssd for boot but not cost effective for nas. Nor do I trust their longevity.

Smaller stuff has smaller mass and therefore can be more reliable.

There were portable mp3 players with mechanical hard drives that were reliable despite extreme abuse.

I’ve read there is an id pin on Epyc cpus that differentiates them from Ryzen. Der8aur made it work by masking the pin on the socket.

The AsRock says ECC but not verified with Ryzen.

So you end up having to test it yourself like this guy and hope the version hasn’t changed between when he bought the motherboard and now.

https://sunshowers.io/posts/am5-ryzen-7000-ecc-ram/

Could be but finding a motherboard that has verified ECC is tricky. Most say works but not tested/supported so you’re on your own to figure out if ECC fully works.

Plex, Blue Iris, Minecraft mod servers for the kids. I’ll often use the server CPU for video filtering/encoding home videos off of VHS tapes because the nnedi3 filter takes a lot of CPU.

Years ago I lost data on a nas because the ram wasn’t ECC. So I won’t buy/build any PC without ECC unless it’s only going to be used for web browsing/gaming.

This is really nice for home servers. There has been a huge gap for years where the choice was a 16-64 core high watt monstrosity or use a 4 year old server CPU before every server went to high core counts.

8cores with ecc is perfect for my home use.

My Helium 7200 drives run cooler and quieter than my old 5400’s.

It’s crazy that WB is getting away with blatant tax fraud. I can’t claim my house is worth $0 in order to pay no taxes yet WB can say, “This media is worth $0 for tax purposes.”

Harvey Weinstein is 71. As soon as he’s dead, Kevin Smith will buy the rights and you’ll be able to buy it.

https://youtu.be/2_DOt1aHjhs?si=bM-2CphP8NDzGeRd

Thanks for reminding me I need to try mdisc. I have multiple redundant backups but don’t trust any of them for long term. (Hard drive, SSD flash, USB flash)

My carefully burned DVDs are going bad after 15 years just like you said. (They were checked for pio errors at time of burn using only verbatim azzo 100 year media and stored in my basement in black dvd cases.)

Up next Sony sues Pacific Gas & Electric for profiting off of piracy. All those torrents were powered by Pacific Gas & Electric.

You might want to go down the rabbit hole of virtualdub2 and avisynth. Virtualdub provides a GUI for very simple editing but its main focus is encoding. Avisynth allows you to work with video files with scripts. The most advanced filters for improving quality are on avisynth. You can create a .avs script in notepad and then view it in Virtualdub as if its a video file.

You can start with just Virtualdub2. Use its built in deinterlacing filters (because those DVD’s are interlaced), resize filters (because the files on a DVD aren’t the correct aspect ratio) and video/audio compression. For X264, use quality based encoding at something like Q18 for almost perfect quality.

Trek DVD’s are particularly hard because they are a mix of film source and TV special effects so you need a dynamic deinterlacer that can switch between 3:2 pulldown for film parts (live action) and straight deinterlacing for special effects (space battles).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down#:~:text=Three-two pull down (3,of%20transferring%20film%20to%20video.&text=It%20converts%2024%20frames%20per,slight%20slow%20down%20in%20speed.

https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=181209&page=26

If I remember correctly, every watt is around $1 a year. So a 100 watt server costs $100 a year every year to run. 12 SAS drives and the server is going to be expensive to keep running.

If you sell a digital copy you can keep selling that digital copy because you do not necessarily give it away or delete it.

Steam and other DRM systems ensure that copies cannot be played. Yet you can’t sell your Steam games. It is my understanding that in the EU, you can sell your Steam games. So there is no legitimate reason you can’t sell digital goods.

If a copy isn’t kept after sale, it should be legal. It’s my understanding it is legal in the EU.

That is if you can sell a game you bought on Steam. Steam makes sure to copies aren’t played at the same time so you can’t keep your copy after selling it.