Best HDD for long term storage solution?

[johnnyscience]

So I've had a 2TB WD Black series HDD for all of my personal pictures, files etc. and it's been working great

But I need to get it backed up in case it goes bad.

I was going to go with another WD Black HDD in 6 or 8TB, but these are not getting the best reviews on NE - 3.5-4 stars, which just seems low

So what does everyone suggest for high quality, long term data storage? Because they are family pictures, I want to preserve them the best way possible.

Any idea when we'll get some new storage technology that won't degrade overtime like HDD/SSDs do?

We need those quartz hard drives already!

I'm thinking of going with a RAID setup for this, but not sure if I have room for a card or not. I also know there are cons to RAID as it also transfers any bad data sectors too, which may cause it to go bad down the line.

 

[uOpt]

I use the Toshiba drives with good success.

You can make a NAS with RAID1.

 

[LukeTbk]

For that kind of mission, I am not sure I would get raid involved in it, there 0 need to stay online in term of issue and it seem to me to be a complication and risk with what in exchange, saving on a rsync task, something you will setup anway to have more than a single physical location backup ?

The strategy for something you want to keep for 50 years could be more important than the quality of hardware, just assume and accept any model you buy will fail.

Because it is a small amount of data in today world a simple way to go could be as a 1-2-3 strategy.

Any brand HDD inside your computer, a NAS or external USB with a copy and a cloud service for a third copy that will not be affected by fire-water-thunderstorm type incident. Or you can have external usb + the NAS being a significant enough location in the house (I known people that with a friend each use each other nas in each other house, it can be a simple single USB drive that plug into the ethernet and does it, like the my WD book external).

For quite important, relatively small amount of data with many decades horizon, going 3-2-1 could be advisable:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/

And because data can be unchanged, read only, untouch for long time, drive in a safe can work, unlike SSD (if that not a myth I am not sure), HDD having no current for decades is not an issue.

 

[daglesj]

What do YOU REALLY need to keep?

 

[LukeTbk]

What do YOU REALLY need to keep?

This could be a good idea/strategy, what do you want to keep for 50+ years and give to grand childs say (family picture type), what to you want to keep for only 5 (tax return files, contracts, photo-video that are nice to keep but not a big deal if they get lost over time), can make a 3-2-1 for the long term file but only a regular backup of the rest cheaper.

Any idea when we'll get some new storage technology that won't degrade overtime like HDD/SSDs do?

Old one, in perfect storage condition like tape are not bad at this, and there is always talk of very longtime new bluray-R tech or m-disc, but they tend to be expensive if you do not have the quantity of data to amortize the hardware over a lot of disk-tape.

Cloud storage on Blaze cost $6 a month by TB in pay has you go right now (priced at the hour-byte use which is really nice), I imagine some long term offer exist, but 50 years of cloud could be around $3600 in today dollar and not having to be paid now, ultra flexible and has the important easily not physically in the same location than your 2 other local backup, I imagine good in this tech people can do all of this with reasonable amount of work, but it is not that easy.

 

[wareyore]

For family pics, especially those who are not living, start using Ancestry. Don't need a subscription to contribute. You are the product, there too. Digitize and get rid of, yet save, the old stuff for the next several generations.

Look at a NAS device and something designed for backup use, since you are going to spend the money now, anyway. I assume you have a network device (modem/router combo at teh least). You can buy one to make it simple or build one if you are interested in playing around and learning. Personally, I'm not a fan of the "Easystore" type external deals. But, they are easy to use and if the system is not used it's of no help.

Backblaze has personal accounts that are cheap. Perfect for off site backups. Just make sure you pay up and use it on a regular basis. Saved my mom a few times.

 

[Mad Maxx]

I've used Google Drive for offsite backups, but Backblaze looks interesting. At $9/month, it's also cheaper than GD and bypasses any need to rely on Google for security. Thanks for the tip, LukeTbk and wareyore!

As for HDD storage, I use a couple of 12TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives for my most important data.

 

[_Gea]

For local long term storage with disks:

- allow disks to fail without dataloss (Raid)
- allow bitrot (ZFS with regular scrubs at least once or twice a year to repair detected bitrot due checksums on data and metadata)
- allow the array to fail (fire/theft) with an external/additional/cloud copy

 

[hmz]

If you data is not expending than the offline storage is the best. I keep my stuff offline on multiple HDDs/SSDs. I would really doubt they would fail at once. Backblaze is great if you constantly adding stuff to your storage, otherwise I would look somewhere else.

 

[johnnyscience]

For local long term storage with disks:

- allow disks to fail without dataloss (Raid)
- allow bitrot (ZFS with regular scrubs at least once or twice a year to repair detected bitrot due checksums on data and metadata)
- allow the array to fail (fire/theft) with an external/additional/cloud copy

_Gea can you explain this a bit more? So you suggest that I should do RAID and not an NAS?

I do like the bitrot option to scrub discs and make repairs

Can/should I do RAID with an NAS?


Ok lots of great info everyone, thank you!

Yes, this is for really important stuff like family pictures and documents I would want to preserve digitally, forever.

I would also prefer just doing multiple physical copies, vs an online option.

I agree, the 321 strategy is a great system.

I think I am going to get a NAS and then swap the HDD out every month or two with a HDD that is stored in a safe.

Does anyone have any NAS suggestions?

I'm looking into the Seagate Ironwolf Pro for the HDDs to use with a NAS.

What makes these Ironwolf Pros so high quality compared to a WD Black or a Toshiba equivalent?

I am also going to do the M-discs too. I saw these before and forgot about them, so I'm glad you brought them up. I'll just need to get a disc burner to create these.

Are they really as legit as they claim to be for permanent storage?

I found these Vertabims:

https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-98913-M-Disc-100GB-Surface/dp/B011PIJPOC/ref=sr_1_2?sr=8-2

And these Hitachi Archival discs:

https://www.amazon.com/Archival-Hitachi-Digital-Storage-M-Disc/dp/B09392TLP1/ref=sr_1_3?sr=8-3

Does anyone have any experience with either of these?

I think both companies are and have been a pretty solid data storage company overall, and probably can't go wrong with either option.

 

[_Gea]

Raid is a method to build an array from several disks with redundancy, ex a mirror. This allows a disk to fail completely without dataloss. Redundancy is the important item.
With single disks and ZFS you can set copies=2 what means that every datablock is twice on disk on different places what allows to repair a bad block (datablock is bad or due bitrot where physical datablock is good but with bad data).

NAS is a computer that offers storage over the network mostly with a raid but there are also raidless NAS devices with single disks. The OS is not so relevant for data security, the filesystem ist. The most reliable solution uses ZFS (available on Free-BSD, Illumos, Linux, OSX, Solaris, Windows)

If you only need long term backup, you do not need a NAS. You can use removeable disks (Sata,SAS, USB enclosures) with or without a raid (mirror), best with copies=2 to allow bad datablocks then.

As you cannot avoid bad disks, bad media or bad datablocks on the long term, use a method that can handle that without dataloss

 

[daglesj]

I asked myself this question -

"Do I want ANY of my parents data or photos?"

Answer - "No, not really, only until the will and probate is sorted! Got enough of my own crap to deal with without handing it onto to someone else to worry about after I'm gone!"

"Yayyy look, Grandpa left you his 200TB ex.enterprise Server farm for you to look after! Isn't that great?"

 

[kydsid]

I went thru this thought process a few years ago. I based it on what do I want for my kids and what do I want for their kids and beyond. For them I am saving every single picture and video we have digitally, which is really not that much. Local on a HDD (no raid, no bitrot watch), up to Backblaze (currently costing $3/month with autopay on a prepaid that will last 5 years of payments after no action from me) and a cold store HDD and Bluray in our safe deposit box made once a year. For their kids and beyond I am selecting the best and printing them in archival quality because I don't expect any digital media (discs, HDD or etc) to last longer than a single generation without maintenance and upkeep. I have physical photos from the 19th century. Anyone expect to be able to run a HDD or Blu Ray in 2140 and beyond? Any archival digital process is only going to last as long as the computers retain the hardware, firmware and software to access the data.

 

[daglesj]

I always say in 1000 years time historians will still know more about the Egyptians than right now due to the papyrus and stone tablets still being around whilst all those .doc and .jpgs will be long gone.

It's a losing battle.

 

[kydsid]

I always say in 1000 years time historians will still know more about the Egyptians than right now due to the papyrus and stone tablets still being around whilst all those .doc and .jpgs will be long gone.

It's a losing battle.

1000%, for those archival drives listed by the OP, you would have to pack away the drives, complete computer setup, software and redundant parts for everything to truly make it archival and legacy building.

 

[uOpt]

_Gea can you explain this a bit more? So you suggest that I should do RAID and not an NAS?

I do like the bitrot option to scrub discs and make repairs

Can/should I do RAID with an NAS?
[...]

It's what I do.

Does anyone have any NAS suggestions?

I run raw FreeBSD for my backup holding server. The hardware is ECC enabled and can take SAS disks.

That's about as complete as it gets short of a tape robot.

 

[LukeTbk]

If you use a pre-made for you NAS solution like Synology it will come with Raid option, they even have a Synology Hybrid RAID(SHR) that will do some best option for your number of disk type of setup (if you 2-3 drive will go for a 1 disk failure, if you 4 or more 2 disk failure):

https://kb.synology.com/en-id/DSM/help/DSM/StorageManager/storage_pool_what_is_raid?version=7

If you have only 2 drive on your raid, you can have a simple daily (or hourly, or weekly as you which) rsync a main drive you use to the second drive instead of a raid (you can do it to an external USB drive or your main computer drive in that same task as well), if you prefer not having those RAID complications