Future proof data storage

[MontyVeda]

being a complete hoarder, my 1TB external hard drive is filling up.

Now I can start burning the data to dvd, but that's going to be a lot of discs and a lot of burning time.... coupled with the fact that dvd's may not retain their integrity forever, that may not be the best long term plan.

so instead i'm thinking of storing all the data on loads of meaty flash drives. No moving parts means nothing to break, right?

Are there any downsides to relying on flash drives as a future proof, fault proof means of storing tons of data?

 

[Acyclo]

There you go: http://millenniata.com/faq/

 

[ian turner]

No moving parts means nothing to break, right?

Hmmm reminds me of a "My gf broke her flash drive with the only copy of her PhD thesis on it can the data be recovered" thread a while back . The usual line of advising people to go for corporate level backup systems tends to be to keep a duplicate copy at home maintained on a daily basis (or everytime you change the files by uploading more photos from a camera, whichever is the less frequent) then make a secondary copy on an external drive (preferably portable) which you store offsite and in addition consider cloud based storage. I describe this as the I lost the kids but at least I still have photographs of them mentality. Personally if my house went up in flames I'd have bigger worries than my photo collection.
I'd go for using a NAS drive to reduce connecting and disconnecting of drives plus allowing you to locate the drive in a different part of the house, network permitting, then backing up from tha to an external usb drive.
I wouldn't go for the m-disc solution until it established itself as a standard with some potential for longevity to avoid the BBC Micro Doomsday disc debacle (all the data on a disc for which there is no longer a functioning reader)

 

[MrJamie]

NAS with mirrored RAID?

 

[defy-one]

Mirrored RAID would require a lot of disks. To get RAID 5 you will need a minimum of 3 disks and you'll lose one to parity anyway. I would just mirror your data. That gives you 2 copies on 2 identical disks. As they start to fill up, you will have to archive some stuff off onto DVD discs OR yet more discs.

 

[Arsen Gere]

Stick in a cloud somewhere and let someone else worry about it.

 

[MrJamie]

Mirrored RAID would require a lot of disks. To get RAID 5 you will need a minimum of 3 disks and you'll lose one to parity anyway. I would just mirror your data. That gives you 2 copies on 2 identical disks. As they start to fill up, you will have to archive some stuff off onto DVD discs OR yet more discs.

I think were suggesting the same thing but confusing eachother, i was referring to mirroring the disks as RAID 1 which is just a simple mirroring like you suggested.

 

[byegad]

Buy another 1 Terra storage system? I'm using a Samsung Story for files like Pictures, Videos (Home shot.) and my writing. So far under 200Gb used but looking ahead I'll probably buy another when the time comes.

 

[ian turner]

Mirroring is strictly for business who need minimum down time as for a home user odds are that it's the cheap enclosure or a power surge that takes the drive out. Better off maintaining two copies in separate drives and putting at least one of them on a ups to protect against the power surge option.
If you trust in the harddrive to miraculously survive until you decide to upgrade then you're asking to be struck by a bolt of lightning . Moving data to cloud storage is a long term project even if you don't have a download/upload limit on your broadband as uploading 1 TB on a 20mb connection assuming no overheads for protocol would take about 2 months. Plus over a TB of cloud storage would cost on a monthly basis though not a lot.
There's no such thing as future proofing as the computer industry is dedicated towards making your equipment obsolete and no such thing as fault proof just failure minimization as though cloud storage will be backed up by the provider they can still go bust with no guarantee of being bought out.

 

[Rob3rt]

Not sure of the cost because I was not there when it was bought but you could look into what we call the Terrastation in our office!

It is basically a hard drive that is not in any pc nor connected to any pc directly, but is accessed via your home network. You plug it into the wireless modem using an ethernet cable and then you can map it as a network drive on all of the pc's in the house, you can even partition it to assign a certain allocation of space to different users and can password protect the partitions.

They usually come with 1 license to install their backup software on 1 computer, if you want more copies you pay per copy.

Basically, you work as you wish, then you either click backup/sync or you set it to happen at a certain time each day/week and then it does its thing. That way if your pc goes pop for some reason, it is unlikely that both drives will be taken out especially if you put it on a surge protector.

 

[Red Light]

Stick in a cloud somewhere and let someone else worry about it.

Have you ever worked out how long it will take you to download 1Tb from the cloud and what the data charges would be? And how long do you expect the companies providing the cloud to be around? Keeping it on duplicate drives is by far the cheapest and most convenient option. Just make sure you keep one of them in another location so if you have a fire or flood there is another copy that is safe.

 

[ian turner]

Ahem I just calculated an optimistic time to "upload" which come to think of it should be multiplied by 20 to give 40 months as upload speed on a 20mb connection would be 1mb or thereabouts. Livedrive claim you can store an unlimited amount of data on their system for £50 a year roughly though odds on like unlimited broadband they'll have to change that as the data hoarders show them exactly how much they can manage to use.
Probably more practical to use cloud for new data and a subset of existing data.
Rob3rt just described a NAS drive and rather than going for a terrastation I'd go for something like a readynasduo where you can upgrade drives without having to buy a new one.
Secondary location of drives is strictly for the enthusiast as maintaining a regular backup on your current system can be automated whereas taking the backup drive elsewhere and remembering to bring it back is going to be the first victim of waning enthusiasm except for the "I lost the kids but at least I still have photographs " brigade.