What do people use for a shelf-stable backup
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I've decided I should have a small number of physical prints, as extra redundancy. I'm thinking I'll print 100 each year to store with the hard drive backup.
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I decided instead to use ZFS. Better protection than just letting something sit there. Your backups are only as good as your restores. So, if you are not testing your restores, those backups may be useless anyway.
ZFS with snapshots, replicated to another ZFS box. The replicated data also stores the snapshots and they are read-only. I have snapshots running every hour.
I have full confidence that my data is safe and recoverable.
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I have automated backups including to cloud, but I want a separated manual system that cannot get erased if I mess something up (accidentally sync a delete, lose encryption key, forget to pay cloud bill). I have 3 2 1 but it's all automated and backups are eventually replaced, if it's not a critical failure I won't necessarily know I've lost something.
Basically, I specifically want cold storage, and not cloud. I will only add, not delete from it. And I don't want it encrypted.
Based on other conversations I'm planning on using duel disks mirrored, zfs, annual updates and disk checks with disks rotated out every 5 years (unless failing/failed). Handling the need for layman retrival of data by including instructions with the hard drives.
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You are the first person who has recommended SSD for cold storage. Everyone else (including what I've googled) says HDD for cold storage, just spin up every year or two and they will be fine. Can you point me at further reading?
Don't worry, I'll SMART check the drives each year as I update as required.
As for types of drives dying out soon, I can reassess the situation every 5 years when I do drive replacement. I would be confident 2.5" drives will still be readable in 5 years.
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Reminds me of project Silica. Media historically was more durable (stone/ ink and cloth paper, etc) but had a low data density. As density increased, so did fragility
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If you need something which can withstand some bitrot on single drive, just use par2. As long is filesystem is readable, you can recover files even if bit of data get corrupted
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That is not gonna work - read up on byte rot.
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That sounds like a really good idea. You basically get the best of everything.
The cool thing about ZFS is the pool information is stored on the disks themselves. You can just plug them in and import the pools.
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Basically, I specifically want cold storage, and not cloud. I will only add, not delete from it. And I don't want it encrypted.
I have a client with a photographic studio. To give you an estimate, his data is around 14TB of mostly camera pictures with approximately 20 years or history and the owner believe it or not, relies on multiple external hard drives for cold storage, he has a 2TB Seagate thats like 2011-2012 old which still works.
To put in a cupboard tho, M disc is your best bet.
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Do not use an SSD for cold storage - it will fail. SSDs need to be plugged in every once to refresh the charge in their NAND, otherwise they'll lose the data.
This is not a theoretical thing - I've had a good Samsung 850 Pro drive fail while being off for 2 years.
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Yeah it's an interesting thought. They seem to come up to 100GB capacity, but the wikipedia page claims (with a [dubious] qualifier) that you need some sort of special higher power burning device to write to M-Disc.
I don't have an optical drive at the moment. Would I just pick any rated for BDXL?
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Everyone is saying to avoid flash memory. It doesn't store well.
Another suggestion given is M-Disc, which might be a better option because then anyone should be able to throw it in a CD drive and load it without having to worry about the format of the drive and things like that. And even if CDs are not that common anymore, I think people will still know what they are and be able to find a way to load it even in 50 years. Like if someone found a cassette tape today (I know they were common much less than 50 years ago, but it's hard to find an example since records came back into fashion). Plus M-Discs are designed for long term storage, so I could worry less about bitrot and files getting corrupt etc. They are write once so I'm not going to write over existing content.
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You need a designated M Disc capable burner,yes.
There are a few on the market though - they cost around 100-150 bucks usually.(In theory you can use a regular writer sometimes - I know people who do that,but why risk that?)
I usually recommend the verbatim to my clients,they are dirt cheap and work flawlessly so far.For reading the discs any regular data-capabale blue ray disk drive will do.
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Hard drives loose their data fast if not powered (within a few years),so do SSD based media. Furthermore the former are very suspectable to mechanical destruction, electromagnetic interference,etc.
And even if for some reason your drives last that long there will be nothing to connect them to - you know how we connected hard drives 25 years ago? Via SCSI/IDE.
Good luck finding a converter to these now. If you go back further you need ISA controllers for the drives.This is a really bad idea. Really really bad, especially with the goal you want to achieve.
Your data will be gone within 5 to 10 years. -
The idea is that I'd swap out drives every 5 years or so. If USB A is no longer in use I'd swap out at that point for something newer. Plus the drives would be powered on every year for the update, it's just the point that I stop doing it (too old/hit by bus/etc) that the clock would start ticking.
I do like the M-Disc idea though. Probably a similar price, and more in line with the shelf-stable solution I was looking for.
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This is actually terrible advice.
WORM media exists for a reason and telling someone with a mere 3-2-1 he will never loose data is absolutely irresponsible.Neither is it a good idea to use regular hard-disk for offsite-cold storage. A really really bad idea.
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Like this? https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/DVWVER4618789/Verbatim-43888-External-Slim-Bluray-Writer-Ultra-H
That's NZD by the way, conversion rates are terrible at the moment so about halve it for USD, seems in the price range you said.
