I have a 80GB Seagate drive that is around 10 years old and it hasn't been continuous use for most of that time, the disk power-on time for it is 13499 hours (562 days + 11 hours). It is currently in use in my pfSense box and shows no signs of error, I do have a younger drive that has seen more work (as in 2+ years of power-on time) and it has a couple of relocated sectors but otherwise it works fine.
This question is tricky to answer, as I do that these really old drives that have survived around 10 years but I haven't used them as archival storage, mostly just stuck them in a drawer and reformat them for when I need it for some task so can't account for possible bitrot.
TL:DR: The disks themselves should survive 10 years unused, just not sure about the data on them.
Typically an SSD could last longer than HDDs but for long term storage it could be an issue, as SSDs can't retain their data if they are without power for long periods of time so don't work too well as cold storage.
I wonder if leaving an SSD plugged into power, but not data, would suffice. It would provide the requisite power to keep things kosher, but it should last a decent length of time because it's not reading/writing all that often.
It won't. Unless there's a scrubbing process, running from time to time, checking data integrity and correcting it if needed (in case of SSD - overwriting data over itself, renewing cell states even if data isn't corrupted yet), even checksums won't save your data in the long run.
Several things... for portability I'd look at external drives like the WD MyBook series. Self contained and reasonably robust for travelling. Relatively cheap. 1. Even with something like a MyBook, connectivity is going to be a problem if you really expect a decade's worth of service. Things change. Can you read a PATA IDE drive? SCSI II? How about SCSI I? 2. File reads. Again, software changes. Chances are app files will be worthless and how valid is the data? Only pure data files like photos will be any sort of use and I'd make sure you have lots of dupes instead of worrying about long term off-site storage.
I'm pretty paranoid, but I personally store all my data in no fewer than 3 physical drives and 2 cloud locations. Currently it's Google Drive, Dropbox, 2 different PCs, and a periodically updated RAID array.
The fact is that these drives do fail, and predicting when they will fail is near impossible. Say you go home to access your backup, and on the way to your PC to plug it in you trip. There is goes. Seems like a pretty insecure way to store things you really care about.
Short answer no. Long answer depends on how much activity it has, and pure luck, but there is a reason for the warranty on hardware, basically never aim for a piece of hardware to have a life span longer than the warranty lasts. Usually this isn't true luckily, but once the warranty is runs out, that's basically the company's ways of telling you we wont guarantee the integrity of our product. also allways have a backup, be it a secondary harddrive, or dropbox for important data.
Why not just buy cloud storage space with the money for the 4tb hard drive if speed is not a concern? Or multiple free google accounts with basically unlimited storage space like this, only thing you have to remember are usernames and pases... But no money required this way
I don't know. I would probably use Blu-ray for archival storage. Verbatim has 100 GB discs with archival guarantees, the MDISC 100GB Blu-ray. Data is engraved into an inorganic layer. Resistant to sunlight, humidity, heat etc. Make three copies and 10 years is no problem, the problem is as per usual to have something that can access the data ten years down the line. Standard procedure for archival is to read back the data periodically, less than five years usually.
Well that's the thing with archives, they need to be maintained. The idea to put something away for ten years and then somehow magically use it again is kinda ludicrous really. Might sound great, minimal work involved, but it will almost never work. Has been talked about in the thread already, technology getting deprecated etc etc.
I have problems getting important things done, maintaining an archive for ~10 years isn't really something I'm interested in adding to my work load. A running backup of my important stuff is as far as I can manage.
Print it to hard copy, and get a big ass file cabinet. I got two of these. Downsides; no encryption, but it has a week key lock security; no protection from fire and flood, HDD didnt either.
If you solve entropy, let me know.
The only thing i would say is swap out drives every 3-5yrs and be ahead of HDD death. 3-5years into the future, drives on clearance will be twice the size and like $40-60CAN, so $5USD.
Most retired HDDs on my shelf have died from just sitting there. Once replaced, I have gone back to use and old one in a pinch and they have been dead.
I’m going to re-open this topic.
My first idea was to buy another 5tb WD red so I can keep my current files in raid 1, however I realized everything I would be “concerned” about losing could be stored for the long term anyway
I’m currently planning on purchasing some sort of long term storage
Now with current technology I assume either a bluray bd-r or a M-Disc bd-xl would do the trick. Does anyone know the difference between the two?
I would start burning DVD’s. after one or 2 you’ll be amazed at what your willing to delete.
I’m guilty of data hording too. half my HD is stuff I KNOW i will never use.
