One of the largest digital archaeology projects has hit a key milestone: Minecraft devotees have just completed downloading and archiving 24TB of data, preserving a million squared block region of the game’s infamous 2b2t server.
How 1 Million² Minecraft Blocks Were Downloaded - YouTube
This milestone project is retold in the video above, and/or you can read more about the technical details behind the feat on a GitHub page maintained by one of the download team. The project was delivered thanks to the “thousands of dollars spent, and countless hours wasted,” writes Crayne (GitHub organizer), supported by Fuch, Mahan, Steve3, and many more avid Minecrafters.
The archived region comes from the oldest and most infamous ‘anarchy server’ in Minecraft, dubbed 2b2t. It was founded 16 years ago and has been running since then. A dose of anarchy is inevitable in this server/world as there are basically no rules, no bans, and an anything-goes culture permeates the place. Visitors will therefore notice 2b2t is full of griefed landscapes, ruined bases, and remnants of structures, new and old.
As some folks aren’t keen on the undiscovered history and hidden bases of 2b2t being snapshotted like this, the Minecraft archivists had to work carefully. The project was already a massive undertaking, with 24TB of data covering a million × million blocks area of the Overworld (and more) that took multiple enthusiasts years to survey and archive. If the archivists had been detected, some 2b2t players would very likely have hunted and killed their bots. But as of now, the following have been successfully downloaded:
- A 1,024,000² (1m²) area of the Overworld (Dec 25 2025 - Apr 13 2026),
- A 512,000² (512k²) area of the Overworld (Nov 11 2024 - Dec 12 2024),
- A 256,000² (256k²) area of the End (Jan 23 2026 - Feb 15 2026),
- A 100,000² (100k²) area of the Nether (Jun 9 2025 - Jun 14 2025)
So, how and where can you get this 24TB of 2b2t world data? The team says they will need “a few weeks” to create a torrent containing it all. Moreover, they're asking downloaders to be patient – which almost goes without saying for a 24TB archive. Separately, there will be high-res renders and data mining spreadsheets made available, too.
The Minecraft fans behind this project encourage those interested to check out their GitHub for open-source tools related to this massive archive. More large-scale world downloads are teased, so you can also connect with the project team via Discord, Patreon, and the aforementioned GitHub.
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