Question How should I store my data?

[allibilgin]

Hello,

I have 400 GB of data, which is very important to me. It includes family photos, videos, and other documents. What would be the best storage solution for me to keep them safe? I'm considering storing them in multiple places. Would an external HDD be better, or an external SSD?

Since I'm thinking of getting multiple disks, I assume SSDs would be too expensive. What's your opinion?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

What's your opinion?

shopping around, you'll usually find similar prices between HDD & SSD these days.

but how do you plan on accessing them;
through an external dock,
internal installation,
USB enclosure,.?

you may want one location connected to your main system.
and a second to use as portable media.
this is one way you could have two separate depots if one happened to fail.

 

[Rokinamerica]

HDD are great for long term storage as long as stored correctly. i advise you to have a copy external at your desk, another copy external kept somewhere else (in case of fire or such) and i keep an extra copy on my desktop pc.

 

[geofelt]

Multiple places is a very good plan.
One on the pc.
One on an in house backup.
One on an out of the house backup.
Perhaps one in the cloud?

Some may suggest raid1, but that protects only against a drive failure, not by other perils such as fire, inadvertent deletion, ransomware and so on.

How frequently does the contents change?

From a hardware reliability point of view HDD and SSD are not that much different.
I would be inclined to use hard drives for storage since performance is not critical.
Writing sequentially to a HDD is about as fast as writing to a SSD.
The speed advantage of a ssd comes from fast random access.

 

[allibilgin]

In that case; I think having a computer and 2 external HDDs is enough. Is it true?

 

[hotaru.hino]

In that case; I think having a computer and 2 external HDDs is enough. Is it true?

If one of those external HDDs isn't going to live in your house all the time, sure. If you want to make sure you're data is safe (ish), the general rule for backups are:

• At least 3 copies of the data
• Using at least 2 separate storage devices
• With 1 copy off-site

The third one can be accomplished using a cloud storage provider.

 

[geofelt]

In that case; I think having a computer and 2 external HDDs is enough. Is it true?

Enough is enough..... until it is not.
You can buy a couple of 1tb hard drives for <$100.
Cloud storage is cheap and 1tb should not cost much as a third backup.

You might also want to consider how you go about updating the drives.
Adding photos or whatever.
If the update process is flawed or has a virus, you do not want to update all of the backups the same way and at the same time.

For your own peace of mind, devise a plan to test your recovery process before you need it.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm considering storing them in multiple places.

The basic concept is 3-2-1.
3 copies, on at least 2 different devices, at least 1 offsite or otherwise unavailable.

And preferably, as automated as possible. Prevents "oops, I forgot".

 

[kanewolf]

There are lots of good recommendations in this thread. The KEY thing to remember is that you need an automated method of UPDATING your 3-2-1 implementation. Having three copies is only good of the two backups are up to date.

 

[Rokinamerica]

For your own peace of mind, devise a plan to test your recovery process before you need it.

This is so true. All the backups in the world won't matter if they don't work.

 

[allibilgin]

There are lots of good recommendations in this thread. The KEY thing to remember is that you need an automated method of UPDATING your 3-2-1 implementation. Having three copies is only good of the two backups are up to date.

Then I guess I need to save some money and buy 3 external disks.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Then I guess I need to save some money and buy 3 external disks.

What's your plan here to make backups to these drives?

If you have one copy in the computer itself, you only need at the minimum one external drive here. The other copy can be on the cloud. Or if you don't want to do that, you can buy another external drive and just keep it somewhere outside your house.

I should probably clarify, while having two physically separate devices to store the backups is the suggestion, having them plugged into the same computer all the time (or at least powered on all the time) isn't recommended.

 

[allibilgin]

What's your plan here to make backups to these drives?

I want to advance the time. I'm not currently planning to purchase, but I think it would be useful as data accumulates in the future. I don't plan to buy this year, but I want to plan something according to the progress of the business. That's why I asked this question.

 

[USAFRet]

I want to advance the time. I'm not currently planning to purchase, but I think it would be useful as data accumulates in the future. I don't plan to buy this year, but I want to plan something according to the progress of the business. That's why I asked this question.

And next week, you will have a catastrophic fail that kills your data.

Backups need to happen all the time. Not just when 'data accumulates'.

 

[allibilgin]

And next week, you will have a catastrophic fail that kills your data.

Backups need to happen all the time. Not just when 'data accumulates'.

It seems like 3 external disks will be expensive. Does it really make sense to do this?

 

[Moonstick2]

It seems like 3 external disks will be expensive. Does it really make sense to do this?

Your data, your risk. How gutted would you be if you somehow lost the data tomorrow?

You can go out and buy a single external disk now, back it up and at least you'll have one copy.

Longer term, you get any additional storage disks you might need.

Personally I have the data stored on the main PC drive, backups on another internal drive, backups of the same frequency on an external drive that's otherwise disconnected, and less regular backups on an external drive stored offsite.

But a lot of it depends on how much data, how often it changes/needs to be backed up, what your set up is and so on. You talk about personal data, but also growing the business?

 

[allibilgin]

Your data, your risk. How gutted would you be if you somehow lost the data tomorrow?

You can go out and buy a single external disk now, back it up and at least you'll have one copy.

Longer term, you get any additional storage disks you might need.

Personally I have the data stored on the main PC drive, backups on another internal drive, backups of the same frequency on an external drive that's otherwise disconnected, and less regular backups on an external drive stored offsite.

But a lot of it depends on how much data, how often it changes/needs to be backed up, what your set up is and so on. You talk about personal data, but also growing the business?

I have my own personal information. I just want to protect these. It has nothing to do with business.

 

[DSzymborski]

Maybe you can't complete the ideal backup routine for a while, but a partial solution is infinitely better than no solution. It might not be 3-2-1, but a connected external drive, with a nightly or weekly automated routine for incremental backups/backup checking is infinitely better than the current backup solution, which appears to be nothing.

 

[Flayed]

If it is only 400GB of data then consider a Blu-ray writer drive and put it on 4 discs, then make another copy of the 4 discs just to be sure.

 

[kanewolf]

If it is only 400GB of data then consider a Blu-ray writer drive and put it on 4 discs, then make another copy of the 4 discs just to be sure.

That makes A copy. An automated method is required to get the new files or edits to documents, etc. At least an external hard drive can make a 400GB backup file unattended, and incrementals every night. Any process that REQUIRES human interaction will be skipped or ignored in a short period.

 

[USAFRet]

If it is only 400GB of data then consider a Blu-ray writer drive and put it on 4 discs, then make another copy of the 4 discs just to be sure.

That is ONE copy.

What then do you do if another file were added?

 

[Silas Sanchez]

The best medium is actually optical discs, at least good ones (which are hard to find), M-Disc would be a good start, while the actual substrate is comparable to other run of the mill archive BD, it has noticeable better protection against the elements. Outside M-Dsic, I can tell you the best is single layer 25GB panasonic and that there is no difference between the cheaper ones and the very expensive ones. Check the disc id with imageburn to see if they are genuine, off the top of my head I cant remember the id.
Burn with lowest speed and a new optical drive. Pioneer are my strong reco.
The general consensus is dont use multi layer discs, too many unknowns and too many things to go wrong.

Store them in an "airtight" stable temp storage with desiccants. An educated guess based on the general science is they should be good for at least 20-30years.
make sure you checksum the files as that is the only way to know if the files are good. Make at least 3 backups, 5 better. don't compress anything as that is asking for trouble with file corruption.

However once you get into the TB storage, these discs are too expensive if you are doing new backups/alterations.

As far as HDD vs SSD...

The 3 golden rules to success are:

1. Do periodic refreshes of the data every 3-5years.

This means take a HDD, and re copy the contents to refresh the strength and integrity of the data.

2. Replace drives every 5-10years.

Its a good idea since the drives have failure points. The data might be fine, but the drive can fail out of the blue.

3. When copying anything use a program like teracopy as windows can't be relied on. You use windows and your files stand a good chance of being corrupted over time.

Don't use encryption, more things to go wrong like that guy who lost his cherished family photos because he used a 64char password and lost the master key... game over.

The problem with ssd is the way the hold charge/electrons. They can easily leak out overtime due to the cheap affordable quality they use. Never use ssd unless they are specifically engineered for such a purpose. I use to use flashdrives to archive stuff, and they were capable of no errors even after sitting in cold storage for up to 5 years. But they were much lower density and arguable better than todays flashdrives.

 

[Moonstick2]

I have my own personal information. I just want to protect these. It has nothing to do with business.

Okay, your comment about planning according to the progress of the business confused things.

By the way, when people talk about having three copies/3-2-1, the original data counts as one of those: three external disks would give you four copies, one on each disk plus the one on your internal drive. Yes it's semantically dubious but it's the convention.

So, you've got 400 GB of personal data including family photos and videos that are very important to you and no backups. Every day you don't have backup is a day you can turn your PC on and find it all gone because e.g. the drive died and no way to get it back. It. Does. Happen. The reason people are labouring the point is because there are regularly desperate posters who arrive here and X/Y/Z has happened and they've lost their data and please help, and most of the time all that can be suggested is a fortune on a data-recovery service who might be able to help, and commiserations.

In the short-term, by which I mean right now, as soon as possible, make one backup. Either get an external disk, second-hand if need be, or an optical disk writer and a bunch of writable discs, or use whatever cloud space you have or can buy (e.g. Google Drive gives 2 TB for £7.99 / month).

Once you've done that, don't put it to the back of your mind but instead plan out a proper 3-2-1 backup system. Even if you build it up bit by bit because of cost, do it sooner rather than later.