[SOLVED] Best long-term storage solution

[Gabriel S]

Which is the most suitable medium for long-term backup storage? As in 10+ years of very reliable storage with little chance of data loss. I need to back up mostly media files, videos being the bulk of it (some hundreds of gigabytes). I would use it for doing backup operations once every few months. Performance, security and other auxiliary features are not that important.

The cloud is not really an option, due to the large size of the data to be backed up.

Optical media such as Blu-Ray discs must be stored carefully, otherwise they deteriorate as time passes by.

Memory cards are impractical and not meant as backup storage.

To me it seems there are only 2 viable options, either an HDD or an SSD. I don't know though which is better in the long term. What are your thoughts?

 

[PC Tailor]

As in 10+ years of very reliable storage with little chance of data loss.

That's probably asking for a RAID setup frankly, if you want guaranteed no data loss, just one drive probably won't cut it.

USAFRet did an excellent post about it:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/what-is-your-backup-situation-at-home.2997205/

 

[mdd1963]

RAID6 will protect against loss of up to two drives, so, choose one of the 6-8 bay solutions by Synology or QNAP...; stuffed full of 12-14 TB drives, that would be an ~84 TB usable solution w/ 8 each 14 TB drives. (Synology/QNAP 8-bay solutions are not really cheap, however; count on $1000 for an empty chassis, and needing an additional $3200 to stuff it full of $400 each/ WD-Ultrastar 14 TB drives...)

Remember: RAID is not a backup, it merely protects against failure of a drive or two (RAID 6 example)

A potentially cost effective option for longer term 'cold' storage is several 4 TB external USB drives, costing as little as $100 each these days...; have each ~ 4 TB group of files to be stored put on two separate drives, so that your are not risking the failure of a single drive...

YOu can weigh the cost of each solution with your need for occasional access and risk of data. (You might even want both solutions mentioned for the ultimate in data protection, with USB drives stored offsite to protect against fire/flooding relative to the NAS' location)

 

[Gabriel S]

A potentially cost effective option for longer term 'cold' storage is several 4 TB external USB drives, costing as little as $100 each these days...; have each ~ 4 TB group of files to be stored put on two separate drives, so that your are not risking the failure of a single drive...

This sounds much more affordable than the very expensive RAID setup you're proposing, which honestly is a bit overkill for my needs, I don't intend to store such highly important data. Which do you think is best here, HDD or SSD?