I have about 500GB of data (photos, documents, videos etc.) that I have accumulated over the years. Currently, I keep them on my computer and rsync all additions / changes once a month or so to an external hard drive. Do I need to be worried about data loss (sectors going bad, bit rot, bit flip, whatever it is called)?
To clarify,
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None of this is commercially important; I just don’t want to get into a situation where I look up an old family photo or video twenty years down the line and it has got corrupted.
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Both my computer and the external HD are HDDs. They are fairly cheap here (and very cheap if second hand). Buying SSDs or dedicated hardware would be expensive.
The 3 2 1 rule is always the gold standard.
I’d recommend at least adding an offsite backup. Set up rclone with a mounted folder (client side encryption is recommended) and sync the files to that as well.
I use Backblaze for about $6/TB/mo, pro-rated for whatever amount is actually used.
second, for the small amount a backblaze account would be cheap and more than enough. If OP is worried about security then enabling a crypt endpoint in rclone is moderately trivial.
3-2-1 OP. 3 copies of your data, across 2 different storage mediums, with at least 1 offsite.
6$ is about 500 rupees. I can get another HDD for double that price.
I do copy some important files to Google Drive, but I don’t pay for it, and I don’t rely on it.
If you don’t pay for it, you can’t rely on it
Right, which is why I prefer to rely on local backups. Much cheaper in the long run.
I used to work with a guy who was religious about backing up his files to an external drives. Until someone broke into his house and stole his computer AND his external drives. He lost everything.