My first hoard were screenshots from video games, that was when I was 17 orso

20 now but I’ve been doing it since I was 13, ripping my mom’s DVDs from my mom’s collection. Still have the files : )

I’m just starting out at 18, lol. It started with ripping CDs

Im 23 now.

When i was younger it was aqcuiring music.

Then in progressed to downloading every 3d printable file that was free that i found mildly interesting to avoid it ever becoming paywalled.

And then came time to prepare for a navy deployement. So i had to hoard a lot of video content in preparation for months without internet. It also taught me streaming stuff is annoying because at most you get a month of offline use even if you pay for multiple months.

And now im working on setting up a better system than just random external drives with only some stuff being backed up.

30 here. I think I started around 2009. Then in 2012 after USA shutdown MegaUpload, RapidShare etc etc I started buying HDDs for long term 😅

I am 25 and building servers and my NAS is a huge part of my hobby and job.

I started as soon as my Dad got an internet connection. We have 1mbps down and it took eons to get anything downloaded. My dad also had a fuck ton of DVDs as he was big into home theater. I learned what an HTPC was and started messing around with an old media player called Boxee. Convinced my dad to get me a 1TB external HDD and started ripping everything to drives.

After I ran out of DVDs I started looking elsewhere for more media to add. Learned about torrenting. Did it wrong the first time, got a letter from the ISP. Then learned to do it right and now I have a 85TB server holding all my media on a Plex server.

I ran out of space on the 1TB HDD and it turned into 2 external drives. 2 Turned into 3. 3 Turned into a NAS with 12TB. That cheap 12TB NAS turned into a FreeNAS server and on, and on, and on.

I also hold onto any documentation and digital manuals and drivers I come across for things I make or computers I build. I also backup my entire families photos onto my servers now too.

SIDE NOTE: Is anyone here looking into the 45 Drives HL15? I got a pre-order in a while ago and I will have it next weekish. Anyone else here checking it out?

I’m just too lazy to delete things

I think I was about 14 when I saved up and bought my first 20MB SCSI hard drive… a few decades later and up to about ~260TB in the array.

CDRW Rips from bearshare and imeem

I’m 21

video game mods, skyrim and porn

Started when I was 12, always fascinated by torrents and how it works. Me and my 120gb HDD that time.

I love reading these stories. Takes me back. Thanks for sharing.

I simply got into it all after I started remembering things from my early days of the internet and found they were lost to time

I just felt a need to download everything I like, even more so after a few times where something I really liked was deleted off the internet and I couldn’t find it anywhere.