Mac Hut is back

[joshc]

Storage update

One of the main blockers to being able to expand the Mac Hut Archive was a lack of sufficient data storage. That problem has now been solved (for the most part) with a NAS that has 24TB of available storage for the archives. Does 24TB of old Mac software even exist? I guess I'll find out...

So far, the offline archives consist of:
~ 528GB (compressed) of site mirrors - two copies currently maintained, plans exist for making a third on-site copy and then several offsite copies
- 111GB of other files that are less organised, a mixture of Mac software, games, service source files, Apple Ads, manuals, datasheets, etc.
- 120GB of data that has been kindly donated by @MrFahrenheit, still needs sorting but there are some interesting files there, including his archives of A/UX install media
- 2.5TB of files from @max1zzz - this is his complete unsorted archive

So in total this means ~3.5TB (compressed) in the archives so far. The site mirrors consist of 524 separate site archives!

Other short-term plans:
- I will rsync Mac Garden to the NAS. This is about 6TB of data, all the software and games hosted by Mac Garden currently. That would bring the offline archives up to 9TB in size, so potentially the largest archive of its kind currently, outside of places like Stanford and the Computer History Museum.
- Sorting the files I have, and starting to upload to the Garden any software they are missing

For those interested... a little bit of detail about how the Mac Hut NAS is set up:
- HPE Proliant Microserver Gen8
- 16GB ECC RAM
- 4 x 8TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives
- ZFS RAID array - just 1 disk redundant so more onsite/offsite backup plans will need to be put in place
- 120GB Seagate Enterprise SSD used as the boot volume for TrueNAS

Other things

I am still planning to add all the other content I talked about previously - just haven't had time to do it yet. I haven't abandoned any of my ideas, just a lack of time unfortunately!

 

[LaPorta]

Amazing endeavor...this is great!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I can’t wait!

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Between your efforts Josh and @MrFahrenheit 's OS library, you guys are like the vintage software Global Seed Vault!

 

[joshc]

you guys are like the vintage software Global Seed Vault!

I think it's safe to say archiving old software is nowhere near as important as what they do. That's really cool and something I actually didn't even know existed!

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

It's probably the world's most important DR measure that few even know about.

 

[LaPorta]

It certainly is good to have “backup”, but I’d wager that seeing as life survived this long, it would survive any disaster short of the entire planet literally being blown apart. I think it’s actually more important to have “original” backups so in case some DNA modified plant goes extremely bad, you’ve got an original copy to work with.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I think part of it as well is to preserve rare species that are in danger as well, not just the common stuff we need to survive.

 

[Phipli]

It certainly is good to have “backup”, but I’d wager that seeing as life survived this long, it would survive any disaster short of the entire planet literally being blown apart. I think it’s actually more important to have “original” backups so in case some DNA modified plant goes extremely bad, you’ve got an original copy to work with.

Because nothing has gone extinct lately?

 

[LaPorta]

Because nothing has gone extinct lately?

Meaning that life in general will go on. Individual species go extinct all the time.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

I appreciate the kind words, but I stand on the shoulders of giants like fogWraith of Macintosh Garden, and others.

The biggest frustration for me was not having ISO files work, and finding out they weren’t original extracts but modified.

Starting in 1996, I used special software to extract, copy, and backup CDs so that they were 100% duplicates and I understand the process and the importance of doing so. If everyone took the same level of care with disk archiving we wouldn’t have issues.

I’ve posted about this many times regarding people making CD archives poorly and some of those bad players have piped up defending their practice, even though it’s a detriment more than a help.

Much of the drive I sent JoshC contained my personal extracts of original install media in a 100% verifiable way. I would go on to Macintosh Garden and replace all of the uploads there but I have found people get pissdd about their upload being replaced even when it’s proven the upload doesn’t work.

Instead of doing that, I shipped out several copies to people around the world, in hopes those good extracts will find their way into the right places

 

[LaPorta]

Nice work. Having verified, working images is a huge benefit.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Instead of doing that, I shipped out several copies to people around the world, in hopes those good extracts will find their way into the right places

That's a good example of going viral!

Ditto on LaPortas comment.

One question, and be honest here. Do you ever take everything off the shelves and pile into a heap on the floor, then lie and stretch out among the OS boxes like a software Smaug?

 

[MrFahrenheit]

That's a good example of going viral!

Ditto on LaPortas comment.

One question, and be honest here. Do you ever take everything off the shelves and pile into a heap on the floor, then lie and stretch out among the OS boxes like a software Smaug?

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Great scene from one of the greatest shows!

 

[Arbee]

The biggest frustration for me was not having ISO files work, and finding out they weren’t original extracts but modified.

Some of the blame there goes to emulators that can’t use true CD images. MAME, QEMU, and DingusPPC all use real ISO or bin/cue images and we’ve all had difficulties with what’s available. The most dreaded words on the garden are “modified for Basilisk”.