SSD vs Flash Drive

pbartlett

The other thing you might want to consider is an 'I never touch this' backup - a HDD with stuff that does not change eg old wedding photos from 20 yrs ago etc. Basically, this drive does not ever need to be plugged in once it has been created as it doesn't change and can be stored offsite in case of disaster. You could also use cloud storage no 1 for this.

Other drives, cloud storage No 2 etc  can be used for stuff that changes, newly created etc

getmore4less

There are two import failure modes you have to watch out for where you can just end up moving duff data and not know it.

if you back up things that change you need multiple versions(Incremental) because if it gets corrupt during the change you just send the corrupt file to overwrite your only good copies. 

When making copies of existing backups(eg to move media) make sure you do a verify against at least 1 other copy of the data in case the one you copy from got corrupted in storage.
(checksums are another way to check the media is still good)

pbartlett

Another failure mode is that you have a virus on your PC that you don't know about - one that encrypts your files (eg ransomware) - happily plugging in backup drives can lead to disaster!

simon.griggs

Dear Londonman81,

I would reiterate what others have said regarding using cloud storage. There is a Team Know How plan for 2TB storage over five years, for £100 in total. This is about as simple as it gets, but it would take about a month of nights to upload all 2TB to the cloud, so it has some initital pain involved to get it up and running. The cloud option means that someone else takes care of ensuring your data is available, replacing worn out hard drives and the like.

If you want a more DIY option, then 3TB Drives are about the £55 mark, at the time of writing, and a pair of them in a 2 Bay NAS Box  would give you 3TB of redundant storage. You need to ensure that the NAS Box does RAID 1 which means that all data on one drive will be "mirrored" onto the other. That way if one drive fails, the other will have a complete copy. With RAID 1, if one drive does fail, you can replace it with a new blank drive, and it will replicate all the data onto the drive automatically. You could also go for either a second NAS Box which has a second copy of all your data, which is stored offsite, maybe with a friend, or family member, in the event that something drastic goes badly wrong with your home NAS solution. This option would set you back around £400-£500 complete with the drives for both boxes, but once you have paid that out, there is no further cost, other than to replace the hard drives when and if they fail. Modern drives are fairly reliable, and over the years, I have personally used Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba Drives as long term storage solutions. As others have said SSD drives give you speed, but little else in terms of benefits, over cheap and cheerful spinning drives. I have personally used 2TB Toshiba Drives for the past four years, and have not as yet, suffered a drive failure. Don't buy expensive hard drives, just buy regular drives and fit them into your NAS enclosure if you go that route, they will work perfectly fine.

I hope that helps.

Regards

Simon G

Billy_B_North

One thing to be careful of is ending up with multiple copies of your library that don’t quite match. It can take an absolute age to work out if any is a “master” version.

You’re going to be choosing between cost and certainty to some extent. If you prefer to err on the side of certainty I’d suggest a NAS drive, set up with two discs mirrored to each other, so that if one dies you just swap it out with a new one. I’d then say use one of the cloud storage services, and also buy a separate portable drive which you keep off-site, and back up once a month or so.

And..

Get high quality prints of the hundred or so pictures that you want to pass on to the next generation. No-one’s going to trawl through your computer to extract pictures when you are gone.

getmore4less

Billy_B_North said:

And..

Get high quality prints of the hundred or so pictures that you want to pass on to the next generation. No-one’s going to trawl through your computer to extract pictures when you are gone.

It was not uncommon back in the day to do 35mm colour slides as the storage media for photos

As I am the next generation I have trays of the things to go through at some point for access to childhood memories.
I have saved two projectors(one rescued from the tip) and a couple of screens to work with as well as the option to get them all scanned.
prints in an album are so much more accessible.

pbartlett

i use the free program allway sync it propogates deletions as well as new files or changed files.

A_Lert

The most durable option that the average person can easily use is archival grade Blu-Rays or DVDs. They are predicted to retain data for decades or centuries. It'll take a while to write a few terabytes to them though. Ideally make at least two copies on at least two different brands of disc, and use a non-proprietary archive format that includes error correction.

Ordinary hard drives and SSDs, and even ordinary non-archival optical discs, could be unreadable if left alone for a decade. They're designed for regular use not long-term storage. For long term storage they require "refreshing" every year or so, copying and rewriting the data, a task a home user could easily forget.

I agree that for photos printouts are also a good option. Archival grade ink on paper is proven for century-long storage, computer media can only have predictions based on "accelerated aging" tests that might have overlooked something making them lose their data quicker than forecast.