Just don’t go all the way cold. Both SSDs and HDDs need to be regularly powered to retain the data stored on them over a span of years. As long as you occasionally access the storage volume, you’re good, but if you’re planning on leaving a drive untouched and unpowered for more than five years, the data might not survive even if the drive does.
For that kind of long term resilience, there’s really only tape drives and optical.
No stranger to LTO but that’s overkill for the average consumer by a long shot.
3-2-1 protocol can be adhered to with SSD/HDD/cloud. I generally recommend people get 2 spinning drives that are clones of each other, with an SSD as the daily driver. The HDD’s are generally spun up to receive whatever is done on the SSD, which means they are running 5 to 10 times a year generally. Even if it’s less frequent, HDD’s are incredibly reliable. I have a few 6TB ones I use as secondary back ups that are eight or nine years old. Basic WD guys, nothing fancy.
If you have 2 HDD’s and your stuff on gdrive or proton drive or whatever, you’re not losing that data. The chance that you will lose your cloud storage and two spinning drives all at once is near-zero. Implement all of this for like $150 knowing you’re good for 5-10 years.
No, but it’s pretty common for people to spin up drives that are 10 to 20 years old and successfully remove all of the contents. SSD’s ate generally not going to be able to do that even under ideal circumstances.
Yes, but hardly because they planned on it. Don’t use unpowered drives to store things! A safe bet is still a bet, data storage should not be a gamble.
Just don’t go all the way cold. Both SSDs and HDDs need to be regularly powered to retain the data stored on them over a span of years. As long as you occasionally access the storage volume, you’re good, but if you’re planning on leaving a drive untouched and unpowered for more than five years, the data might not survive even if the drive does.
For that kind of long term resilience, there’s really only tape drives and optical.
No stranger to LTO but that’s overkill for the average consumer by a long shot.
3-2-1 protocol can be adhered to with SSD/HDD/cloud. I generally recommend people get 2 spinning drives that are clones of each other, with an SSD as the daily driver. The HDD’s are generally spun up to receive whatever is done on the SSD, which means they are running 5 to 10 times a year generally. Even if it’s less frequent, HDD’s are incredibly reliable. I have a few 6TB ones I use as secondary back ups that are eight or nine years old. Basic WD guys, nothing fancy.
If you have 2 HDD’s and your stuff on gdrive or proton drive or whatever, you’re not losing that data. The chance that you will lose your cloud storage and two spinning drives all at once is near-zero. Implement all of this for like $150 knowing you’re good for 5-10 years.
Obviously. I’m not actually recommending tape drives or optical, but rather that you simply do not leave your drives unpowered for 5+ years straight.
You shouldn’t but people do, in which case HDD is the safer bet. And most will spin up tbh. Just make sure to transfer off them immediately lol
It’s not necessarily the spin up that’s the problem, but the fact that a magnetised bit doesn’t last forever.
No, but it’s pretty common for people to spin up drives that are 10 to 20 years old and successfully remove all of the contents. SSD’s ate generally not going to be able to do that even under ideal circumstances.
Yes, but hardly because they planned on it. Don’t use unpowered drives to store things! A safe bet is still a bet, data storage should not be a gamble.