Hard drives from the last 20 years are now slowly dying.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    What I meant by drives are NAS. I buy the drives on sale spin up a new array, migrate the data, and redirect the mount point.

    I use to cold store until I realized that unless I have access to it, it might as well not exist. Now I keep everything live, even backups going back to 1997.

    The only data I have “lost” are copies of my old warez CDs from eastern Europe because I have no idea where I have stashed them, and a pack of Zip Disks because I have no functioning Zip Drive.

    • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOPM
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      2 months ago

      Phew, I was imagining a closet of drives. NAS is great.

      Cold storage is always controversial as you are storing it on someone else’s hardware, but it is by far the most cost-effective option. Just a single month’s electricity cost in some places can match years of cold storage.

      Using both of course is recommended, as cold storage acts as another backup vector in case your own storage ever gets catastrophic failure due to fire or flooding. 3-2-1 rule and all. But cost is always a factor in people using the best practices.