What do people use for a shelf-stable backup
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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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You need a designated M Disc capable burner,yes. (Not generic BDXL,there are slight differences)
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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Seems the only M-Disc capable writer I can find locally is a portable USB-C connecting one, so if I go with it I'll probably just store it with the discs. In theory M-Disc is supposed to be resistant to the kinds of things that destroy regular CDs, but making a second copy does sound like a good idea. I could even store them somewhere else (another house) to protect against fire. I have cloud backup but you never know what's going to happen over 50 years. Or if I die in the fire and no one knows I have the cloud backup.
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There are still problems with the hard drive solutions:
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Powering up the drives for a short period does not help with error correction when sectors get compromised
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As said before it is relatively risky as mechanical parts of HDs do not like to be moved only occasionally. While this problem has become less severe over the last years it still exists.
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The updating will include copying from one drive to another - this process is highly suspectable to errors that might be correct with the right file systems - but it's not a guarantee.
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And the main problem: You want to achieve a long shelf life - which means you must consider periods of time when you might not be able to maintain the data. What happens when you are not able to do so? And your next of kin are not quite ready to go through your things? To give you an example: You copy your data on the HDs today, maintain the disk's for four years and want to change disk's in 5, which means in 2030. Sadly a weeks before you are able to do so, John,your neighbourhood's stupid school bus driver hits you and you suffer a major traumatic brain injury. Even worse,you don't die right away but suffer for another 5 years in a nursing home before a infection gets you. Your family meanwhile is not quite ready to get through your things as you are still alive, aren't you? (For real,this is the case a lot) After your funeral it takes them another year to finally get through all your things.
Now your drives haven't been used for 7 years.
Even worse,one of them slips through your next of kind hand and hits the ground hard.
How big do you think the chances are the data is still available?
I think we both know the answer.
While M-Disks are also suspectable to damage there are hardened multi-disk cases that make them pretty much indestructible - nothing any HD case can ever achieve.
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3-2-1 is the minimal consensus and not recommended anymore for everything you need to reliably have access to after a long time - the fact that some ransomware viruses intentionally have a very time they are laying low to decrypt old and rarely used files is one of the main reasons.
Healthcare, finance, taxation, accounting, etc. are all sectors that heavily rely on WORM media and long term tape storage.You are right that a spinning disk often can work for 10 years - but there is a reason they are exchange earlier in a professional setting. Not all of them will.
And you were talking about cold storage disks. This is something even the manufacturers do not recommend - for a reason. -
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Sweet, thanks, I think that's a good plan. I am thinking duplicate disks, one on site one off site. I do have a cloud backup, but if I die in a house fire then having the offsite disks is a much better solution than the random B2 bucket.
Thanks for the help
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Dude this isn’t healthcare this is a person’s home backups. Are you kidding me?
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A hybrid is probably a good way forward. I had a career as a photographer for a while and I learned from that: going through 1000 photos takes very little time, but going through 10,000 takes an eternity. If you can star or mark your obviously important photos as you go along, it’ll take very little to print them at the end of the year.
