this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
689 points (97.6% liked)

Technology

69449 readers
4361 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Title is a little sensational but this is a cool project for non-technical folks who may need a mini-internet or data archive for a wide variety of reasons:

"PrepperDisk is a mini internet box that comes preloaded with offline backups of Wikipedia, street maps, survivalist information, 90,000 WikiHow guides, iFixit repair guides, government website backups (including FEMA guides and National Institutes of Health backups), TED Talks about farming and survivalism, 60,000 ebooks and various other content. It’s part external hard drive, part local hotspot antenna—the box runs on a Raspberry Pi that allows up to 20 devices to connect to it over wifi or wired connections, and can store and run additional content that users store on it. It doesn't store a lot of content (either 256GB or 512GB), but what makes it different from buying any external hard drive is that it comes preloaded with content for the apocalypse."

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Looks super cool wish there was a version with more storage. 256/512gb is on the low side for end of the world

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (3 children)

It seems that they are working on a premium version of the PrepperDisk with up to 1TB of storage space. They will also be bundling that with an AI LLM implementation trained with the data present on the PrepperDisk.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Okay it's conceivable that there'd be enough power to read through and search a drive, but LLMs might be the worst and least efficient use of electricity Icould possibly imagine in a doomsday scenario.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (3 children)

What kind of storage do they use? Because SSDs left unpowered will lose data.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Yup.

SSDs are not good for long term storage. "Old" disk drives are still king for long term.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is it also hardened against EPM's?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

EMPs are overrated by Hollywood, who like to show sparks and electrical arcs and robots exploding and whatnot. In reality EMPs are mainly a threat to the power grid, because they operate by inducing an electrical current in a conductor and the longer the conductor is the more powerful the induced current is. Power transmission lines are thousands of kilometers long, they'll build up fearsome currents and fry stuff plugged into them (assuming circuit breakers and fuses don't manage to protect it). But a device like this has wires a few centimeters long, so they don't pick up nearly as much as long as they're not plugged in. They're more delicate, sure, but I like my odds.

An EMP can also be shielded against by a wrapping of tinfoil, as mentioned below. As long as there aren't large gaps (no, tinfoil hats don't work) it acts as a simple farraday cage. So if you really want extra protection keep this in a metal box. Assuming its case isn't metallic to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wrap em in foil. Boom protected. But kinda moot if there's no power.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Make sure to etch your foil with how to rig up solar cells for power.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That's my next question. If things are bad enough that the Internet is gone, what reliable source of power would survive the unknown scenario that got things that bad?

That power source would also need to power a separate computer or smartphone that would also need to be kept protected from whatever happened.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

My doomsday kit is just a bottle of SoCo and a camping chair.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Yeah, but won't you need enough electricity to power a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for this to work?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (17 children)

That doesn't take much power, a solar panel or two should be more than sufficient, or you can rig something up w/ a defunct ebike (just run the motor backwards to generate electricity).

load more comments (17 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

I was hoping it would be one of those drives built to last hundreds of years. Oh well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

no, how do i manufacture SSD's at home so i can preserve linux mint 21.1 xia or my screenshots or the terminal calculator i got from typing 'apt install calc' ?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I get a magazine called Backwoodsman. It is a rag but it is something to read while taking a shit. I saw the advertisement in the latest issue. I was thinking yeah this is ok but can't you download most of this for free?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I mean, there's a lot of things you can do for free that we pay people for. They've put together a device that is preloaded with a ton of information. To do this yourself would probably take most people a week or 2, at best a weekend if you worked hard and had pre-existing knowledge and a fast connection. Maybe longer depending how they modified the raspberry pi, though you don't necessarily need it to do everything they made it do.

You'd pay in this range for someone to clean your house for a few hours. You can also do that free. It's the convenience you're paying for.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I have HDDs that have been with me for almost 10 years. I need to replace one with one that I can use as a backup for all of them AND have some to spare.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›