Octopus Overlords

I want to have backups of certain things - like family photos. Something that isn't in the same environment as my PC, so that something like a fire wouldn't destroy everything. We're talking hundreds of gigabytes here. Online backups, even if hundreds of gigs wouldn't take days to upload, either don't support that amount of data, or are subscription based (which I can't afford, and creates a problem if I were to kick the bucket, as nobody but me would know how to manage/access it.) I've tried external hard drives - I've bought three different drives from well-respected companies (like Seagate), and of the three... one works. The others lock up windows if I even try to access them (which is apparently a well-known problem.)

So how does one actually create backups of this much data that can be offsite and still be accessible by others?

There are many options but they all cost money. For my back ups I have a WD NAS ($400) that has 2 3T drives that copy to each other. Then I have a WD 8T ($140) and a WD 14T ($250) external USB drives. Then I also have a asus brlue ray burner ($150 with 10 disks) that can write to up to a 100G disk. I have 50G ($17 for 10) since the 100G are more expensive. I also have a usb to HD adaper to use internal drives as external. Just make sure yo have backups of your backups.

They do have Large USB sticks now . Like Sandisk has a 256G going for $26 or 512G for $57 on amazon from the sandisk store. If you you do get USB sticks, make sure its from a ligit seller. There are some modified that don't report thier true size and just let you loose data that you think you wrote to it..
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-Fl ... r=1-1&th=1

I thought about getting a NAS, haven't gotten that far yet, but I do use external drives - some are old enough that they still need to be plugged into a power outlet separately from being plugged into the USB drive. They have all worked fine over the years. I guess it's a matter of luck (and also not ever leaving them plugged into either power or the PC unless being actively in use).

I have a couple of 1TB Samsung T5 drives (USB-C solid state). I keep both locked up; one off site. I have an extra HDD where I keep the image of whatever I back up. Periodically, I copy it to both of these T Drives. They are mounted often enough that they won't die from lack of power. And I will eventually replace them with a newer version (I used to have T3 drives, from 2016-2021)).

External drives are an obvious solution. The only problem being that most of those that I've had simply never worked reliably (and I wasn't lucky enough to realize it within the 30-day return window.)

I've found external USB spinning rust drives to be unreliable at best. Both at home or work. That's why I have gone the route of good quality external SSD (with removable cables). Notice that I'm not suggesting USB sticks that have built-in connectors and are lower quality solutions in the first place. My T3 drives were fine for 5 years. I still replaced them last year, because nothing lasts forever.

To clarify limitations, solid state drives do not retain data as long as magnetic media. They have a charge level which decays over time. So if I put them in a safe for a few years they would be unreadable. Knowing this, I regularly reformat them and then re-write all of the data (renewing the charge levels). The best long-term solution for rarely changed data would be optical media or even an M-Disk (which is what many corporations use for long-term, Tier 4, critical data archiving.) But that is very slow and expensive. So i use SSD and keep multiple copies.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 5:38 pm External drives are an obvious solution. The only problem being that most of those that I've had simply never worked reliably (and I wasn't lucky enough to realize it within the 30-day return window.)

Really, I've used them both for work and personal and I've never had a failure. USB, Flash, SSD, etc... They've all failed for me for no easily identifiable reason. I have no idea what the failure rate for HDs is, but I've had about three of them fail on workstations, two on crazy high use RAID servers, and one personally over the last 30 years. That spans 100s and 100s of drives across many manufacturers. I've probably bought about 10 1 TB wallet drives for personal/work/friends and family backup purposes over the last six or seven years. They could be had for under $50 and suit the need pre/early COVID.

Sorry things have been horrible for you. I trust recovery from mechanical drives much more than I do flash type memory/SSD. My comparative luck with non mechanical/optical media has been horrible and recovery after failure has been a whopping 0%. I think I have one non RAID HD failure that I wasn't able to recover all data from over the years. As long as I've been able to get the platters to move, I've been able to recover data.

I've never had an internal drive fail, just externals.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 10:21 am I've never had an internal drive fail, just externals.

I got to join that club a few weeks ago. My wife's PC is about two years old, and has an internal SSD. A few weeks ago, it went belly up. I was set to replace that, but while trying to hook something up, I launched the four external mechanical drives off their perch, into the wall, and then to bounce off the floor. Sadness.

Luckily the only thing on the SSD is Windows, so I just installed a new SSD and reinstalled Windows. The external drives did not immediately fail, so I bought replacements and copied their contents to the new drives.

All data that I care about is backed up through CrashPlan, but that's a subscription service. But you remind me that it's critical that everyone in my house know how to access that encrypted accounted with two-factor authentication tied to an app running on my phone.

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:54 am But you remind me that it's critical that everyone in my house know how to access that encrypted accounted with two-factor authentication tied to an app running on my phone.

This has been a theme for a me lately - making sure that things don't fall apart if I were to buck the kicket.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:59 am

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:54 am But you remind me that it's critical that everyone in my house know how to access that encrypted accounted with two-factor authentication tied to an app running on my phone.

This has been a theme for a me lately - making sure that things don't fall apart if I were to buck the kicket.

I have long maintained a death binder for my wife, but I have neglected to include this information - which is probably more important to her than all of the accounts.

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:06 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:59 am

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 11:54 am But you remind me that it's critical that everyone in my house know how to access that encrypted accounted with two-factor authentication tied to an app running on my phone.

This has been a theme for a me lately - making sure that things don't fall apart if I were to buck the kicket.

I have long maintained a death binder for my wife, but I have neglected to include this information - which is probably more important to her than all of the accounts.

I've been working on the same. In fact...