I have backups on a backup hard drive and also synced to B2, but I am thinking about backing up to some format to put in the cupboard.
The issue I see is that if I don’t have a catastrophic failure and instead just accidentally delete some files one day while organising and don’t realise, at some point the oldest backup state is removed and the files are gone.
The other thing is if I get hit by a bus and no one can work out how to decrypt a backup or whatever.
So I’m thinking of a plain old unencrypted copy of photos etc that anyone could find and use. Bonus points if I can just do a new CD or whatever each year with additions.
I have about 700GB of photos and videos which is the main content I’m concerned about. Do people use DVDs for this or is there something bigger? I am adding 60GB or more each year, would be nice to do one annual addition or something like that.
If it’s powered off, you’ll have no idea when it dies. And they do die just sitting there.
I’ve actually had more failures of drives sitting around than ones running constantly.
But I will because it won’t work the next time I take it home to sync. The chance that it’ll fail during the few months between a sync and an emergency is incredibly low.
I wouldn’t leave it on a shelf for years, just a few months at a time (approximately quarterly).