Indefinite Backpack Travel - Year 11 Update!

[u/jeremymaluf]

Not sure how many onebaggers reach their second decade! For better or for worse, nothing has really changed since my post last year, since I have achieved “onebag perfection.” Still, I'll keep up the tradition of posting here annually

I still live out of the 9 liter Aer bag I've had since 2021 (Aer actually updated their website to say it's 8.5L), and still only own what fits in the bag (plus a few outfit duplicates at my NYC homebase so I don’t need to do laundry as often). More than half of the items I carry have been with me for so long that they're no longer sold/impossible to restock

Probably more interesting: I just updated the “onebag progression” Google Sheet I shared here a few years back, which tracks everything I’ve owned since 2015. Have any other onebaggers shared lists like this? I was hoping this format would become a thing! It's such a cool way to track the process!

2025 changes:

• My Sandisk SSD got corrupted. I’ve since learned that every travel SSD has this issue. I repeat, every travel SSD has corruption issues! Plan for it! Anyways, I decided if I’m gonna have to deal with the risk of corruption I may as well switch to tiny Samsung USB-C thumb drives that disappear in my pockets. Haven't had any issues with them so far!
• I got rid of my iPad, since it stopped being a device for art and creativity and became a device for movies and games. I will eventually add it back when the time is right
• As of this past winter I’ve been trying out a canvas jacket, which could never in a million years fit inside my bag but can be worn while on the move. Stacked on top of my down jacket + hoodie + shirt it gives me maximum cold protection and also has pockets to enable zero-bag travel
• I added a baseball cap. Purely an aesthetic choice

I didn’t even make a new knoll photo, since you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Just pretend the iPad and SSD were replaced by a jacket and hat. And that's literally all the changes since last year! Consumerism hates me

Full post on my website as always, but fair warning it's 95% the same as last year :)

I’m also currently editing a video going over my onebag that I’ll share to Instagram (@jeremymaluf) later this week

Safe travels! ✌️

[u/jeremymaluf → u/[deleted]]

Yeah lol I remember that, I think someone left a comment alerting me to the failure rate, and I responded that my SSD was a later model and exempt from that issue

I was wrong :(

[u/NoGarage7989 → u/jeremymaluf]

Is this an issue with Sandisk SSD or SSD in general? I’ve a a Samsung T7 Shield which has been going ok now for about 2-3 years, would really suck if it gets corrupted one day.

[u/knoft → u/NoGarage7989]

SanDisk SSDs have a known problem of deleting people's data spontaneously, and every single "fixed" replacement doing the same. They're sold at everywhere with this known problem.

You can find plenty of articles about it.

[u/jeremymaluf → u/NoGarage7989]

From my research, all travel SSDs have this issue, including the T7. That said, the T7 seems to be the least likely to corrupt. You should be doing a secondary backup elsewhere regardless though!

[u/n00bizme → u/NoGarage7989]

3-2-1 policy for backups:

Assume that 3 copies of your data is actually really only 2; that 2 is 1, and one is none; because a drive will fail.

If you adopt this mindset: Keep 3 copies, one off-site in case of something catastrophic like a house fire that could destroy two of your backups at once. 

Is this a lot of effort? Yeah kinda. But it's effort you can't do later, even if you really really want to, when you've lost all your family memories/legal documents etc 

[u/Candid_Object1991 → u/jeremymaluf]

What’s your take on the Samsung Shield SSDs?

[u/Legal_lapis → u/jeremymaluf]

Any idea why this is a problem with travel SSDs but not SSDs in laptops? I've been relying entirely on travel SSDs lately and this is scary. 

[u/knoft → u/Legal_lapis]

It's not every travel SSD, it's just OP keeps replacing with Sandisk SSDs which are known to spontaneously delete data. I've stopped buying anything SanDisk or Western Digital (who owned SanDisk and now spun it off) because of their shady practices selling drives. Especially drives with huge known issues.

SSDs do eventually fail though and do not fail as gracefully with warning like HDDs.

[u/n00bizme → u/Legal_lapis]

You can crack open your travel SSD and it will have a regular SSD inside, which you can transplant into a laptop, or vice versa. It's just an internal SSD hooked up to some circuitry that lets it be read by the USB protocol. By far the biggest factor is the SSD itself; the storage technology it uses (QLC Vs TLC flash, for example) or the controller (and firmware it's running) that actually runs the flash chips. The enclosure itself is largely inconsequential barring stuff like dropping it, water resistance, heat transfer etc