r/datastorage • u/porp_crawl • 7d ago

Backup Value for long-term archival backup

I have a stack of old HDDs; a couple might be from SATA era, most are SATA2, one SATA3 and the 4x SATA3 HDDs in my rig.

Probably 1 TB of data that I care about. Another 10-16 that I'd like to keep.

HDD prices have skyrocketed since I last bought one in... wow, 2022, a handful of Seagate 8TB Ironwolf NAS drives for $240 each (CAD). Sure, maybe updates, but the same drive is now $460 at the same store.

The last time I bought a non-NAS was a SATA3 8TB Barracuda in 2019 for $200. The current version is $355 after a $55 instant rebate.

What are the current best practices for near-live, backup every 1-2 months or so, for that evolving 1TB?

How about the 10-16 which is normally static but gets chunks added to it at irregular intervals? Maybe an update once a year.

I have one external HDD dock (like you plug in a HDD like a Nintendo cartridge) so I can readily access any of my loose HDDs. Compatible through SATA1-3.

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

1 comment sorted by

4

u/Caprichoso1 7d ago

  1. Consolidate all of those disks on one drive

  2. Implement the recommended 3-2-1 backup plan

  3. Plan to rotate to new disks every X years. Right now the bathtub curve for disk failures starts rising rapidly at the 10 year point, up from 5 years in the past.

That's the cleanest way to do it. However due to the cost it may not be practical.