I have a few old hard drives stored away, totaling around 6TB filled with pictures, videos, and files. Some of these drives are nearly a decade old, and I can't believe they're still functioning! However, I'm worried that they might fail soon, and I want to ensure I don't lose any valuable data. I was thinking about using some form of cold cloud storage for backup, allowing me to recover my data easily if one of the drives fails. That way, I'd have both a cold and hot backup. What's the best and most affordable cloud storage option available? Or is there a better or cheaper way to handle this?
2 Answers
I use a 2-bay NAS for backing up my stuff, which I've found works wonders! It runs in RAID 1, so if one drive fails, your data remains safe. Sure, the initial cost of the NAS and drives can be high, but it pays off in the long run. I’m not too keen on cloud storage myself due to recurring fees and data breaches. An alternative is just to buy two external drives and back everything up on both. If one fails, you can easily retrieve your files from the other. You could also repurpose an old laptop to create your own NAS if you’re tech-savvy. Each option has its pros and cons depending on what you're comfortable with financially or technically.
With SSDs getting cheaper, why not consider multiple smaller drives? You could get, say, twelve 1TB drives and back everything up onto them, keeping half at home and half somewhere safe. I’m currently transferring stuff from CDs and Blu-rays onto a NAS and then onto SSDs, so I think it’s worth exploring all options.
Is there much difference in price or reliability between several smaller drives and one large 10TB drive?
I get where you’re coming from about cloud storage being risky. I’ve heard concerns about data privacy too. It might be best to stick to physical drives for now. I’m leaning towards just getting a couple of big HDDs instead of investing in a full NAS.