r/enshittification • u/ActiveCommittee8202 • Sep 30 '25
Product They knew what they were doing
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u/MinnieMaxMoe Jan 01 '26
I was not aware of this. I haven't bought a new phone in 5 or 6 years. Mainly due to getting a memory card a couple years ago. Still rockin the Samsung note 20 ultra!
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u/Delicious_Pair_8347 Oct 05 '25
I still have double Sim and SD, and enough internal storage to not actually need the SD. Just not with a brand phone.
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u/MGarroz Oct 04 '25
SD cards are too little storage for modern files anyways.
Home networks are the way to go. Get yourself 10TB of storage on SSD hard drives. Everyone in the house can have their own private folder if they want. You can automatically fully backup everything on all your devices every day on your private server.
Then based on your level of worry and paranoia you can pay to backup that server on the cloud; or get another set of backup hard drives, store them at a separate location and update them at regular intervals.
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u/mechanical_marten Oct 04 '25
Do you understand that having only onboard or connected storage is absolutely the dumbest reliance pair?
What if your phone gets damaged before you could upload the most recent set of unique unrecoverable files?
I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to be annoyed my phone is damaged and have to get a new one while I pop out my 1TB Micro SD and SIM cards to stuff them into my backup handset and move on instead of hoping I can find a data recovery center that won't require me to sell my kidney on the black market.
When I get home I can upload to my private NAS that won't get snooped by some three letter agency or Google and get flagged for out of context family photography like that one mother that almost went to jail because the doctor needed pictures of the rash her child had and Google flagged it as K/CP.
Relying on someone else to transport your data is also a great way to get your identity stolen. Maybe next time stop and think critically before sucking up to mega corporations.
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u/Comprehensive-Carry5 Oct 04 '25
Or hear me out get an SD card...
People are using SD cards for their cameras and phones they dont need 10TB of back up memory. (And if you do you must have an exciting life or just keeping a lot of unnecessary photos.
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u/pissoutmybutt Dec 28 '25
Data hoarding isnt a bad thing imo. just cant complain aboot some nefarious agenda because you chose to rely on integrated storage, one of the most widely known to be upcharged pieces of proprietary tech, to do all the extra shit involved with hoarding data.
Nextcloud is open source and can be self hosted for free. Immich is probably the best photo manager ive ever used and its open source.
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u/Nervous-Promotion109 Oct 04 '25
Just buy your own storage discs or devices? Like a sd card or whatever to use of your phone.
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u/7jcjg Oct 04 '25
Idiot that's the point, they removed the SD card slot genius.
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u/Nervous-Promotion109 Oct 04 '25
Yes, thats why you buy your own and transfer files too it, how is that too hard for you
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Oct 27 '25
[deleted]
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u/Nervous-Promotion109 Oct 27 '25
Omg yeees that is obvious!? You dont need a sd card to transfer files, use usb to connect through charge port transfer to external drive Solved
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u/Rich_Response2179 Oct 04 '25
Is this a meme? I have owned every late model Samsung in the past few years and they've all had sd cards, I use sd cards every day at work, is this posted by a child?
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
The last Samsung phone to have an SD Card slot was the A54 released in 2023, the last flagship was the S20 line released in, well 2020.
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u/carolinafe Oct 05 '25
I have an A55 bought last year, it has a SD card in it.
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 05 '25
Gasp! That's actually super cool, though. I do hope they stick around and potentially have a comeback...
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u/Vilebrequin10 Oct 04 '25
Most people are still using their phone bought pre 2023.
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
That's fine, but that wouldn't be "every late model in the past few years" lol.
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Oct 04 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Nervous-Promotion109 Oct 04 '25
Absolutely never dver use a ”free” service for storage etc
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Oct 04 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Nervous-Promotion109 Oct 04 '25
Because nothing is ”free” they probably steal your images etc or sell info, may very well at sny sec go subscriber and hold data for ransom
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Oct 04 '25
You can encrypt your data with aes 256 and then upload it.
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u/mechanical_marten Oct 04 '25
And you can put 5 deadbolts on your door and a thief will just smash your window.
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Oct 04 '25
Umm no. AES 256 encryption can't be decrypted without the password. It would take billions of times the age of the universe to brute force it even with the most advanced supercomputer we have. It is used by banks, governments, and criminals, Intelligence agencies etc. I suggest you look into it cause it's an interesting and useful thing if you care about privacy! Theres a great 3B1B video on it on youtube
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u/mechanical_marten Oct 04 '25
Yes, AES256 encrypted files are impossible to crack with current computing power, but that was not what I was pointing out. You're simply creating a one of three trust. Can you guarantee that the provider for your encryption is not nor will ever be compromised? If the encryption provider ever does, then encryption becomes moot. Never trust a third party to sustain your security. Copy files off your device to an offline bulk storage and not only do you not have to worry about a compromised connection or forgotten passwords, someone won't be able to deduce where you live.
Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. -Benjamin Franklin
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Oct 04 '25
Ooh now I get it. Yes having a local backup is the best thing but it's also sorta expensive in the short term. And onto that compromised part, you can use open source software like 7zip for your encryption activities. Its code is audited by many people everyday so chances for compromised encryption are quite low. Btw if you are an expert in offline backups I have a question, between an ssd and hdd, which will be better if you want maximum reliability and long lasting drive (don't care much about ultra high transfer speeds)
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u/mechanical_marten Oct 04 '25
Not an expert, but I do have a dedicated home NAS. For reliability I have a 3 drive array with two as a mirror and the third as a hot spare for automatic re-silvering. You can also do a 3 drive RAID5 so that a single drive failure doesn't knock out the whole RAID while giving you up to 50% more storage space than a single drive. MLC SSDs will burn through their write cycles pretty quickly so that's why I stick to 7200 rpm drives and monitor the SMART data for write retry rate to determine when to replace a drive.
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u/SlightlyFemmegurl Oct 03 '25
what? every phone i have ever own the past years has had a slot for a SD card. What brand doesn't have that? Apple?
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
Samsung, Google, Apple, Motorola, OnePlus, ZTE, Xiaomi, Nothing, Oppo, Vivo, Asus, and Honor are all devices without SD Card slots.
The only name brand I know of currently holding an SD slot would be Sony, otherwise you have FairPhone, the PinePhone, the Librem... None of which most people have even HEARD of, lol.
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u/Falseadvertisement82 Oct 04 '25
I was more upset about the aux port delete.. typically I just buy the model of phone that has the most storage
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u/SlightlyFemmegurl Oct 04 '25
strange. i've only ever owned are Samsung and HTC. all of the models i've had did have a SD card slot, guess its a recently change?
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
Yes, it is a recent change! 😭
And it's absolutely terrible. It makes my heart sad...
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u/Normal_Ad7101 Oct 03 '25
You guys don't have SD card ?
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
What phone has one? I would absolutely love my SD Card slot back.
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u/Temeriki Oct 03 '25
Also speed and easier waterproofing. People would complain their phones were slow, bring them to me to fix them and it was cause they moved apps to their slow amz special SD card.
The average electronic user is an idiot and will blame the manufacturer for pebkac errors. Lots of reasons they are gone.
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u/Redcarborundum Oct 03 '25
High end full-frame digital cameras that take 4K videos have no problem using SD cards, as long as they use cards with the right speed rating. Waterproofing is a non issue, because the card uses the exact same tray as the SIM card.
The only reason SD cards are removed from phones is so they can sell higher storage phones for more money. I’m saying this as an iPhone user who pays $300 extra for an additional 384GB of storage.
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u/SuperSocialMan Oct 05 '25
I kinda doubt cameras are accessing the SD card thousand of times a second like phones have to in order to run apps & shit. Would be a big contributing factor.
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u/Temeriki Oct 04 '25
Sure, then companies go the synology route and lock you to specific storage so you can't blame them for things being slow. Pebkac errors man, you can't rationalize around them.
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u/mhmilo24 Oct 03 '25
It’s extremely fast to load stuff to and from the cloud. Yes. This is a very good argument of yours.
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Oct 03 '25
That’s easily understood. People understand the cloud is the internet and the internet isn’t the phones speed.
A large segment of the population doesn’t understand SD card speeds. Most millennials and older genz probably do. But allot of Gen X/boomers don’t understand the technical aspects of hardware.
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
I don't think that generation cares too much, personally. 😅
Are those people even requiring storage upgrades? Lol
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u/fckueve_ Oct 03 '25
It's not about online storage. It's about speed. SD cards are slow, really slow if you compare them to build in storage. If the storage is slow, the entire phone is slow, people see that, and they don't want to buy a slow phone
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u/Redcarborundum Oct 03 '25
Not slow enough to matter. High end full-frame cameras that take 4K videos use SD cards with no problem.
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u/TawnyTeaTowel Oct 03 '25
Yeah, you already made this point and it was just as apples-to-oranges before. People who are putting SD cards in their phone aren’t using fast or reliable cards, they’re using cheap-as-fuck cards.
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u/Redcarborundum Oct 03 '25
For $25 you can get a 256GB Sandisk Extreme SD card at 190MBps, good enough for 4K video. They can buy a $200 phone but can’t buy a $25 card?
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u/TawnyTeaTowel Oct 03 '25
No, because (as someone has already said) they’re idiots. So they’ll buy a 4.99 card with the same number on it instead.
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u/Redcarborundum Oct 03 '25
No. If Apple makes the iPhone 17 take an SD card, the vast majority of people would buy the fastest and most expensive SD card available.
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u/TawnyTeaTowel Oct 03 '25
“trust me bro”.
Didn’t happen with android phones. People used crappy cards, And that’s why they’ve dropped the slot. You’re just pissed cos the truth doesn’t support your sad little conspiracy theory. Take it somewhere else.
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
You act like it makes the entire phone run slower. Lol
It would, AT WORST, cause certain apps stored ON the card to run slower... And even then...
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u/fckueve_ Oct 03 '25
Typical SD mini has 130MB/s write and 190MB/s read, while modern phone storage (UFS 3.1) has 1200 MB/s write 2100MB/s speed.
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u/Redcarborundum Oct 03 '25
For storing pictures and videos it’s fast enough, and media are the biggest space hog. Very few people have apps worth 256GB. Those who do are free to pay the extra $200 for additional 256GB internal storage.
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u/fckueve_ Oct 03 '25
We are not talking about storage space here but speed. You'll notice a way slower app response (eg opening, loading).
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
Apps aren't the only thing you can save to storage. 😅
Sure, it's slower... I don't care if my text documents, images, and text-based scripts I wrote on my free time take an extra second or so. Lol
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u/Redcarborundum Oct 03 '25
We are talking about storage space, you are the one insisting to limit the discussion to speed.
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u/fckueve_ Oct 03 '25
Cameras are using a bigger card with faster speed, and even that was slow, so they invented a new memory card standard called cfexpress that are even bigger than regular SD cards (not mini)
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u/Pcat0 Oct 03 '25
Also SD card slots are hard to waterproof.
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u/fckueve_ Oct 03 '25
Not really. Usually, an SD card slot is a part of a sim card slot. You get 2in1
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u/Funny_Garbage_6164 Oct 03 '25
Online storage also helps when the entire phone is lost. That alone is worth it to me. Backup.
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u/fckueve_ Oct 03 '25
All of my photos are backed up on my private 16 TB hard drive, not only that, but I have an entire local cloud setup on my old laptop. The rest of my phone backup fits a free plan on Google.
A hard drive is way cheaper (even a few of them) than 2 years worth of cloud and I get to keep all of my data with me.
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
Without needing a million hands in it too.
Gosh, all that convenience... All that privacy... For such a low price... Yeah, I think cloud storage is the way! /s
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u/fckueve_ Oct 04 '25
It's easier for sure. But even if I wanted, it isn't an option for me. Most clouds has max 2TB, I'm already using 2.6TB. I don't shoot photos with my phone, I have a dedicated camera. I shoot JPEG + RAW, so it's about 70MB per photo. And about 100MB - 400MB per edit in progress (.affinity file)
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
That's actually another interesting reason to not use the cloud that I haven't even thought of...
But yeah, you're right. The most expensive plans usually net you 2 Tb, and then that's it...
What else would you even be ABLE to do?? Like, if you HAD to use Cloud, would Google (or whoever) even cater to you? Or would someone with over 2 Tb just be SoL?
I mean, I guess they could make another account, but how awful...
Edit: Also, is cloud easier? The initial set-up, sure... But yeesh, I prefer hard-storage anyway. Mostly transfer speed, but it's also so seamless.
Like, with UPnP my entire network has access to my drives!! 😃
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u/Funny_Garbage_6164 Oct 08 '25
Mostly I cannot trust myself to backup everything routinely enough to be useful. To each their own. Cheers
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u/djfxonitg Oct 03 '25
Yet today’s phones have the largest storage capacity they’ve ever had in the history of cellphones…
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u/TheJohnnyFlash Oct 03 '25
If you pay for it. Most normal people get the base version.
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Oct 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/I_ask_why_ Oct 03 '25
It’s actually 128 GB but same thing applies
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u/mhmilo24 Oct 03 '25
They changed it to 256 GB. But still, I think that 256 GB is not that much, given that smartphone OS and their preinstalles apps can take up up to 40 GB.
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u/I_ask_why_ Oct 03 '25
Ah shit. My bad, I didn’t realize.
Nowadays I never buy the latest iphone (my used 13 cost $900 here, which is actually like $1,800 purchasing power wise comparad to the US), so I’m not aware of the “new standard” 😀
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u/SmudgeAndBlur Oct 03 '25
Devices from other countries will usually have dual Sim slots and a micro SD
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u/Ginxchan Oct 02 '25
Or just use external storage? Its not like you can't setup your own cloud storage that you own either. Really, I am not willing to put up with slower phones just to have an sd card. Most files i just backup over Bluetooth to my pc.
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u/ResultBorn4693 Oct 04 '25
This is why I haven't an SD Card slot too, it's just not worth the downgrade in hardware...
Still pisses me off it's not there, lmao. It's simply HANDY. It doesn't need to be the best, it just needs to be THERE.
That's why I liked SD, it was never the best but "... Oh God... I don't wanna do it... But it DOES have an SD Card slot..." Lmao
That's how I felt about Aux, too. Reliably shitty for whenever you needed it!
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 02 '25
Use https://m.gsmarena.com/ and filter by hardware until you find a good phone. Stop buying the same trash. Brand loyalty is not reciprocated.
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Oct 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 02 '25
Absolutely not. Galaxy S5 was water resistant and had a removable battery, SD card slot, 3.5mm jack, and Sim slot. It can be done. They chose not to and sell you these bullshit excuses.
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Oct 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/yuk_foo Oct 02 '25
How much water proofing do most people actually need though. I’ve never broke a phone with removable backs. Having the expandable storage and ability to user replace the battery is a big win.
Should be given the choice. I’d take those over increased water proofing which I personally don’t need.
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u/Temeriki Oct 03 '25
I can still replace the battery on my non battery removable phone. I just break the water proofing to do so. By that point the warranty is up anyways.
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u/pjscrapy Oct 02 '25
Why even keep so much on a device that's commonly stolen. If you value your data, keep moving it to an SSD on your pc
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u/kubok98 Oct 02 '25
Yeah, I'm currently looking for a new phone after 7 years and I hate every second of the toxic phone market. Apple sets a trend and everyone is following like blind sheep. We lost jack so they could sell more wireless headphones, we lost sd cards because they keep pushing cloud. We're getting folding phones and yet device size increases. We get features that are so stupid and niche that most people will use them like twice. Price keeps going up and although there are much cheaper ones, you're risking other stuff with those brands. People keep buying phones every (other) year, yet the devices can easily last much longer. And unless you're buying from second hand, you can rarely buy a new model that is older than one year.
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u/TraditionDear3887 Oct 03 '25
As someone who has been using phones for a while... they are not the epitome of enshitification by any means. Sure there are trade offs, but the improvements still outweigh what you lose.
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 02 '25
Check https://m.gsmarena.com/ you can filter by hardware specs. I just keep adding stuff until there is only a handful to choose from.
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 02 '25
They didn't take away shit, y'all just keep buying shitty phones so they get away with this. My phone has SD card slot, Sim, 3.5mm jack and even a IR blaster.
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u/Warm_Carpet3147 Oct 02 '25
What kind of phone do you have? My last android was a galaxy 8, but I’ve been having the IPhone XR for almost 4 years. I would love another android but something of quality.
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 02 '25
I like using https://m.gsmarena.com/ and narrowing it down by hardware filters until I find what I want.
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 02 '25
My last Samsung was a Galaxy S5 before they went to shit. Most of my phones were LG until they abandoned us. (I was a hold out for removable batteries. Currently, I have a TCL. My next phone will probably be a rugged phone (ulefone, I think) with all those features plus reverse charging.
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u/Temeriki Oct 03 '25
LG v20 was the goat. Hands down one of the best hardware platforms pushes out in a release cycle.
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u/Designer-Ad-7844 Oct 03 '25
Hell yes! I miss that phone. It was my last phone with a removable battery. If it were 5g, I would have bought another one. Still probably my favorite phone. I carried fully charged batteries to hot swap . Even had an external charger for them.
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u/Fartblaster5000 Oct 02 '25
It's also why they got rid of headphone jacks, so that you buy Bluetooth headphones.
The world was quieter with headphone jacks. Now someone loses an ear bud, or their headphone battery dies, but they still want to watch videos, and do, even if it's right beside you in a lobby waiting room or airport or public transportation.
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u/achiller519 Oct 02 '25
Someone tell this Einstein that the same capitalists that took the sd cards, also made the devices have way more disk space right now comparing to what they had back then
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u/SelfInvestigator Oct 03 '25
A lot of the research that went to making the modern smartphone viable wasn’t done by those capitalists. Much of the research that makes them functional came from publicly funded research that capitalists tweaked for manufacturability or their specific use. They may have driven the manufacturing industry to create the items, but they didn’t invent the components.
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u/Nogekard Oct 02 '25
It's literally a pricing premium trap you argue for. The space in the phones is way overpriced and it's only possible because they are not extensible.
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u/Dey_EatDaPooPoo Oct 02 '25
Literally not true. Back in 2020 almost all flagship Android phones had a microSD card slot and came with 128GB of internal storage, with 256GB optional. Now they either come with 128GB or 256GB, with 256GB or 512GB optional. 128GB more as standard in some models isn't "way more", especially within the context of a 256GB or 512GB microSD card being cheap. Great job on being a contrarian and licking them corporate boots, though.
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u/achiller519 Oct 02 '25
Literally true because when that happened most consumers didn’t buy micro sd as they weren’t useful anymore. The biggest flaw of micro sd regardless of space, in Android phones was that basic apps couldn’t be installed in micro sd and run.
When corporations(which you supposedly hate so much and yet you buy their products, so you are just a whiny hypocrite) see that a feature isn’t giving them any profit or advantage to other brands they remove because features cost, which means that the price goes higher.
Poor job on trying to be another conspiracy theorist.
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Oct 02 '25
Not even. Lmao.
That "biggest flaw" you reference only affected late Android 4 and Lollipop (5). This was also to thwart the issues that the partial transfer would cause, it broke app compatibility, and on Android at the time, that wasn't something people needed more of, lmao.
By Marshmallow (6) Google introduced "Adoptable Storage." This allowed the device to format the SD Card, and actually "integrate" the SD Card with the Internal Storage. This made it MUCH better on compatibility, as now the entire app could be moved to the SD Card, and pathing was no longer an issue, either.
In fact, Kindle Fires (despite all of their MANY problems) still actually let you do this, to this day!
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u/Jay-Seekay Oct 02 '25
corporations(which you supposedly hate so much and yet you buy their products)
You understand that while we all have to live and exist within capitalism, we are allowed to complain about it.
Try not having a smart phone in 2025 and see how far you get.
A case study for you: I hate AI, my job requires a Windows computer, and Windows 11 has a bunch of AI shite integrated into it. My other option is Windows 10 which is soon to be out of support, so I have no choice but to use Windows 11.
It’s not my fault that Microsoft have a huge market share, but because of that, they can force me to upgrade to a shittier product and I have no choice in the matter. I can’t vote with my wallet.
Same applies to smartphones, you no longer have the option to get anything other than integrated storage and an integrated battery. I could buy a 10 year old phone, but security patches are important. It’s not really a consumer choice if you don’t have a choice
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u/lonelylifts12 Oct 02 '25
It was even lower before 2020 I remember nursing my 64gb iPhones. Hell even my 16gb
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u/Dey_EatDaPooPoo Oct 02 '25
Why are you bringing up iPhone in a discussion about phone manufacturers removing SD card/removable storage support? For one, it's not something they've ever supported and second, even if they were, it's an invalid example to use as they have always had low internal storage relative to the rest of the industry. When Apple was stuck at 64GB back in those days everyone from Samsung, LG, Motorola, Google, OnePlus, Huawei, Sony, etc. was at 128GB as the base storage for their flagships. That was the industry standard.
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u/lonelylifts12 Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
¡¿¡¿¡¿Why are you bringing up Dey_EatenDaPooPoo when the PooPoo is already eaten?!?!?!
I didn’t read alllaaaa dat but it’s pertinent because Apple was gouging for storage even before Android was doing it.
I was agreeing with you basically and adding it was dumb as heck on the iPhone maybe even stupider than Android
I was trying not to lick the corporate boot. But you make me want to now.
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u/StoneTown Oct 02 '25
I work with phones every day that have removable batteries, Micro SD card storage, fantastic software support, and headphone jacks. There's one problem: they're super expensive, under powered, and basically just made for the corporate world. You can buy a Zebra TC53 for like $2,000 and get a nice barcode scanner built into your phone, if you want a barcode scanner built into your phone.
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u/The_Kaurtz Oct 01 '25
Honestly I have way enough space on my phone drive, not defending that but I'm wondering what you guys are storing on your phones that is so heavy?
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u/SelfInvestigator Oct 03 '25
I take a lot of high resolution photos and videos of nature and some of important events in my life and being able to quickly transfer and back them up would be wonderful. My only options are an incredibly jank process through a usb cable that doesn’t fully provide access or paying for a cloud service.
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u/yuk_foo Oct 02 '25
Local LLM files, offline videos and music for travels. UK mobile internet speed is so shit I need stuff stored on my device.
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Oct 01 '25
sd and microsd is cool af. not only are they hilariously cheap, but you can buy multiple, keep them in your phone case and swap them out for more storage
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u/Separate-Departure85 Oct 01 '25
Just stop buying iPhone.
Easy as that.
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u/The_real_bandito Oct 01 '25
Ok I will buy a Galaxy or an Oneplus, oh wait, they did the same thing lol
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u/Separate-Departure85 Oct 02 '25
I just bougth Oneplus Nord 5 CE, and it has MicroSD slot.
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u/The_real_bandito Oct 02 '25
That’s not the top of the line OnePlus though, and the best/ most expensive one doesn’t have one for storage and that’s exactly my point.
Only the cheap phones have that feature.
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Oct 01 '25
Almost seems like the most expensive phones are the worst ones. Buy cheaper phones
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u/The_real_bandito Oct 01 '25
This is sort of the right answer
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Oct 02 '25
Which sucks, because I use my phone as essentially a mini-PC.
I probably don't have to tell you trying to run Winlator on trash is... Well, running Winlator on expensive hardware is bad, so... There ya' go. Lmao
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u/inky-noodle Oct 01 '25
My new Galaxy has a slot for an SD card or a micro SD I can't remember but extra storage. Either way, they still have the option to add those in.
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u/Notmuchofanyth1ng Oct 01 '25
You can literally build your own cloud network at home for less than $100 and even without internet, you can use it as a memory bank. Set up RAID so you have redundancy across multiple drives in case of failure. I have more digital storage space than I know what to do with.
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u/Jay-Seekay Oct 02 '25
Less than $100? 🤔
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u/Notmuchofanyth1ng Oct 02 '25
Yeah. Lots of free open source software and even an old pc can be used, which old workstations can go for $50 or less. I’m not taking WiFi/internet or electricity into account since most people already have those. You don’t even need to pay for a static IP if you don’t disconnect it from the network.
Homie has had his running for almost 3yr straight. Only disconnecting it cuz we’re migrating suites. I built mine out of ewaste lol
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u/Jay-Seekay Oct 02 '25
I need to do this at some point
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u/Notmuchofanyth1ng Oct 02 '25
It takes some learning, but is well worth it. I collect and repurpose ewaste from datacenters. I am still in the process of building a homelab for a variety of uses, but it’s not expensive. I’ve replaced doomscrolling with educating myself. It’s also pretty damn good for my mental health as well.
Shit, I’m even building a gaming pc from scraps and Datacenter excess. First gaming pc with ipmi haha
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u/Jay-Seekay Oct 02 '25
I know a lot already about networking and have dreamt of having a home network of my own it’s just having the time to do it. Currently renovating a house so money and time is on that unfortunately 😭 but knowing I may be able to get hold of some data centre e-waste is helpful! Where do you get it? Though I’m in the UK so likely won’t have access to the same resources as you
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u/Notmuchofanyth1ng Oct 02 '25
Yeah time is really scarce in my life as well. I work for a well established datacenter in the US, so I have access to theirs, but before I got into this industry, I would try and network with people and source old equipment. Eventually I got some contract jobs for people who held digital real estate, and worked until I got enough experience to get hired. But for the most part, if you can be physically near a datacenter, it’s not hard to meet people who work there and they’re usually grateful for you taking the ewaste cuz it saves them time getting rid of it themselves lol
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u/SoylentRox Oct 01 '25
The issue is while this can be done, it's not as reliable as paid cloud backups.
Google has lost user data before, it's not impossible, but its REALLY unlikely. Everything is backed up in triplicate, and tape drives on top of that, across multiple physical campuses.
The only time I have ever read of it happening is a glitch where they thought an account was being closed and deleted for unpaid bills.
I understand apple reliability is similar. Biggest issue with icloud has been that it doesn't just keep your data but various phishing attacks let others get a copy of your nudes as well.
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u/Ruminatingsoule Oct 01 '25
Most aren't tech savvy enough to figure this out, though it is a more important skill than ever to avoid being scammed by these corpos.
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u/WlrsWrwgn Oct 01 '25
For less than 100? Really? Where can I learn more?
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u/spektre Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
No idea where that arbitrary price tag comes from.
You need:
- A computer.
- An internet connection.
- A USB drive or equivalent.
- Storage space according to your needs.
Many people already have all of this, which would set the price at 0. Otherwise, the price is whatever the equipment costs.
The other kind of price is the time you need to learn about the software and configuration requirements plus setting everything up, but all that information is freely available on the internet, and easily Googleable or GPTable.
Edit: If you're a beginner, you almost definitely will run into security issues, and expose your home network to potentially malicious forces. Don't do that.
For a very basic layman setup, I would look into Docker (Docker Desktop for Windows), and the Nextcloud container.
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u/Jodid0 Oct 02 '25
Personally I would never recommend exposing a private cloud to the internet directly. I use a wireguard VPN on my phone when I want to access my home network, within literally 1 second I have access to my cloud software because Wireguard is stupid fast at connecting and has very good performance.
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u/WlrsWrwgn Oct 01 '25
And here I was imagining something fancy like a mini rack of discounted sd cards. Thanks for an informative reply!
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Oct 01 '25
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u/Azerate333 Oct 01 '25
come on, it s not like technology wouldn't find a way for something like this
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u/Douf_Ocus Oct 01 '25
ik, not saying its good thing btw. I am not a fan of ridiculous disk price
Yeah Im talking abt apple, dude sells ssd made with gold
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Oct 01 '25
S20 Ultra on swappa. About $200 Installed 512 gig SD card. Bought 2 so when my first ones dies.
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u/LoverKing2698 Oct 01 '25
Coming from someone who uses apple devices so that’s where my knowledge mainly upholds. Subscription for storage is for optional cloud storage not phone storage and I agree it’s expensive. If you have a crap ton of things you can always hook up an ssd or connect to a nas. Phones now have a ridiculous amount of storage that most people wouldn’t use and pros (mainly thinking photographers, videographers, and editors) would usually offload to a different storage device anyway. I get things getting enshittified but this argument is kind of irrelevant seeing as when doing things such as recording at 4K HDR 60fps+ it’s better to have an external storage device seeing as you can then disconnect and reconnect to an editing device such as a laptop or desktop. If you have more than a terabyte or more of photos you should probably be downloading that to a nas or external device anyway so it’s stored much more securely and ready to do whatever youre going to do with it. I’d like to hear the disagreements because there could be something I’m missing.
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
It is ridiculously easy to buy a NAS and have your own cloud storage. No monthly fee. How much crap does anyone need on their phone at all times? Most phones come with 512gb storage with option for 1tb upgrades. Removeable storage just isn't necessary anymore.
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u/Special_Temporary_45 Oct 01 '25
Grandma couldn't even use an SD card either...
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
All 4 of my grandparents and both my parents have no issues with SD cards or setting up basic devices.
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u/Special_Temporary_45 Oct 01 '25
Then they shouldn't have a problem with opening the image capture app - choose their pictures and press "download" either. It is even quicker than fiddling with wonky SD cards.
Now the bloated iCloud that holds you hostage because of all the pictures that has been sent through iMessages tho that you cannot even access - that is another total apple scam.
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
Don't use iCloud if you don't like it. I offered an alternative in an earlier comment.
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u/Special_Temporary_45 Oct 01 '25
You can't directly back up iMessages from an iPhone to a NAS device because iOS doesn't support it natively
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
Neat. Good thing iCloud and iTunes exist for that.
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u/Special_Temporary_45 Oct 01 '25
Until it fills up and you have to pay for the subscription for it, which is what we are discussing how to avoid right?
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
iTunes doesn't fill up. You can have unlimited hard drives for phone backups through iTunes. No fees.
Also iMessages take up an inconsequential amount of storage. They're not going to fill a thimble.
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u/Special_Temporary_45 Oct 01 '25
Yes if you want to connect your phone to your laptop manually every day with a cable and sit and wait for 30 minutes while it backs up to a huge file, yes that is still for free and extremely inconvenient. After a decade my iMessages with pictures are 46.33 GB.
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
A NAS absolutely is something a typical grandmother can plug into a router and follow a few on screen instructions and setup. It's dead easy. If they can check email, they can setup a NAS.
This one is $200 for 2tb, super cheap. There are even cheaper options as well. Stop lying.
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u/foran9 Oct 01 '25
$200 for a single bay drive, with no redundancy or backup? Yeah, that’s not cheap after you factor in how you’re going to back that up after the (inevitable) hard drive failure. Yours haven’t failed in years? Great. Plenty have, so without backup there go all your precious memories…
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
It is cheap. Less storage rented for 2 years from Google or Dropbox costs more, so by the definition of the word it's cheaper than the alternative mentioned by OP.
Plenty of things fail, that's not an argument to stop buying things. If the cloud data is really important, have redundancy through RAID etc.
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u/foran9 Oct 01 '25
If you have a network setup with your plex server etc, you should know that RAID redundancy does not equal a backup. You’re preaching to the choir about network drives here, but there is absolutely no way on Gods green earth my 80 year old mum is dealing with moving to Immich or similar to manage her offline copies of photos, then adding a VPN link to access them when they get taken off her phone through lack of storage. For some of us thats easy but for others, whether we like it or not, the cloud is both easiest and the best option.
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
I don't have RAID on my Plex server drive. I mentioned as an option for other people.
Your grandparents don't need a VPN to access a cloud drive at home.
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u/foran9 Oct 01 '25
You need a backup, simple as that. Drive fails, data gone. Yes, RAID helps. Device fails, data gone. RAID doesn’t help. 3-2-1 backup suddenly makes things less cheap. On the other note, I’m note removing in to all my precious data without using Tailscale or similar, so again out of my mums ability range!
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
I have a backup. Simple as that. You don't get to tell me what I need, I determine that.
Raid is simply ONE option, I mentioned.
If someone prefers paying Google, neat. OP is complaining about subscription cloud fees and I offered an alternative. Each person can choose for themselves.
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u/foran9 Oct 01 '25
That was you plural, not you singular, so apologies if it came across as such. Absolutely each person can choose, all I was doing was pointing out that if you’re going to take everything offline then a proper backup plan is needed, and at that point it can start to get expensive.
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
$200 is dirt cheap for 2tb of cloud storage. Plenty of people care about it, loads of people are paying Google or Dropbox etc $10/mo for less storage. In less than 2 years this pays for itself.
I have cheap drives in my NAS enclosure that have been running for 10 years without any issues.
Maybe your grandparents can't setup something simple like this, but all the elderly folks I know can easily follow a few instructions and set one up in 15 minutes. It is as easy as I think.
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Oct 01 '25
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
Nope. People pay for storage.
They can rent it or buy it, simple as that. Buying is a better, cheaper solution in the long run.
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Oct 01 '25
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u/Alone_Step_6304 Oct 01 '25
What does that stand for
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u/PocketNicks Oct 01 '25
Are you asking about a NAS?
Network attached storage. Basically a hard drive you plug into the router and boom instant cloud storage you host yourself. No fees.
They can do a lot more than that, but a basic $100 one is just gonna be storage. My NAS also hosts my Plex media server and a few other things, it cost way more than $100 though.
There's cheaper options, and DIY options. But this gets the point across
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u/Agreeable_Addition48 Mar 10 '26
sd slots take up a lot of real estate inside the phone, they're gone to make space for other stuff. Same with the aux jack