Question What's everyone use to archive data these days?

[Red Squirrel]

I've always used CDs then when spinning storage got so cheap I just end up keeping lot of stuff on spinning disks + having backups on separate drives. But there is always the risk of accidental deletation or corruption that I may not notice and then it ends up overwriting backups too, overall it still does not feel like it's truly "archived" if it's just sitting on live disks.

So been thinking I need to start archiving on cold storage again. Just wondering what's everyone using for that these days, is optical media still the way to go? CDs, DVDs, Blurays?

The amount of data I want to archive is not necessarily that large. Pictures, code etc and stuff I like to archive for historical/nostalgia purposes.

I suppose having multiple copies does not hurt either, maybe do DVDs and hard drives?

I have a bunch of archived data on CDs as well that is probably pushing 15 years, crazy how time flies... so I will probably want to re-archive that as well.

 

[killster1]

Well, I wish I could show you what he wrote in reaction to a side-conversation I was having on that forum, in which I expressed my suspicions. Would they bar him from using the prison library? How much supervision was there -- this was back around 2002 -- for library computers? Would not one or more of those PCs have internet access -- ostensibly off limits to prisoners?

I wouldn't know. How much would you know? I wouldn't really know that either. But the responses I get, for the few times I tell the story, are predicable. I just cannot dismiss my analysis of the two printed writing samples -- the thread posts on the MSN forum, and the fragments published by some Charlie follower on the web. Of course, if writing samples were published by a Charlie follower, then the same Charlie follower might also have made posts to the MSN forum. But that's only one of at least a couple other possibilities, so . . .

prisoners use cellphones as a way to communicate with the outside world. there is a strong chance that if he go online it was from a phone (tho i have heard of some instances where they have plugged Ethernet into a offline computer in the library unknown to the guards) but wow 2002 was a rough year to be using phones for that kinda task right.. n e way you should be ashamed of yourself, that guy was involved with killing children. Maybe instead of saying anything negative to you i should just use my ignore button (never used before today but your posts are like 20 pages of off topic garble anyway best of luck to you?)

This is great timing.

I am in the same boat. I think my luck with hard drives pretty much sucks. I have used various HD manufacturers and without fail, they fail at some point. I do have data backed on multiple drives but it is taking too much time.


I am thinking of going the S3 route. Some of these things are photos and such that I hardly need day to day. Having S3 as my backup of backup is what I am thinking. Once a quarter I can upload the latest changes.

But, I can't find an "easy" way to do this via FTP or another service. I have about 8TB of data (lots of movies that I have burned from the old days from my legit DVD purchases + personal family videos).

Anyone can point me to a great write-up or tech to make this happen easily? And Red, why don't you consider S3 as well? I don't think it is that much more expensive on an overall basis.

just do JBOD with identical drives syncing and a third drive offline in a fireproof safe, (i also use a 4th backup of some data offsite in another safe) hdds are so cheap and you only have 8tb of data, 400$ should ease your mind.

 

[snoopy7548]

For my NAS, I backup to hard drives which I have in hot-swap caddies, so I can just pop them in whenever I need to. For ease of use and lowest cost, nothing beats hard drives - you can regularly get a WD 14TB for $200. As long as you spin them up every once in a while (once a month is OK) and run an error check, you're good.

FWIW, I have CD-Rs that I burned over 20 years ago which still read perfectly. I always used Verbatim Datalife Plus. I still think hard drives are the way to go, since they're just so much easier to use and maintain, easier to transfer/upgrade, and their interface is pretty future-proof; SATA isn't going away anytime soon.

Something I don't do, but I've been meaning to, is create checksums for all of my data before backing it up, so that I can verify that nothing has changed on my backup drives.