Hi,

I’m not sure if this is the right community for my question, but as my daily driver is Linux, it feels somewhat relevant.

I have a lot of data on my backup drives, and recently added 50GB to my already 300GB of storage (I can already hear the comments about how low/high/boring that is). It’s mostly family pictures, videos, and documents since 2004, much of which has already been compressed using self-made bash scripts (so it’s Linux-related ^^).

I have a lot of data that I don’t need regular access to and won’t be changing anymore. I’m looking for a way to archive it securely, separate from my backup but still safe.

My initial thought was to burn it onto DVDs, but that’s quite outdated and DVDs don’t hold much data. Blu-ray discs can store more, but I’m unsure about their longevity. Is there a better option? I’m looking for something immutable, safe, easy to use, and that will stand the test of time.

I read about data crystals, but they seem to be still in the research phase and not available for consumers. What about using old hard drives? Don’t they need to be powered on every few months/years to maintain the magnetic charges?

What do you think? How do you archive data that won’t change and doesn’t need to be very accessible?

Cheers

  • 8263ksbrOP
    1·
    3 days ago

    That is an always ON approach? For example with an NAS? While that is a very save approach, it does not fit the idea of having something “on the shelf”. Thank you for the advice though :)

    • wuphysics87
      1·
      3 days ago

      You could turn it off and turn it back on every X period of time, but that doesn’t guarantee something doesn’t go wrong in between. It sounds like you don’t have alot of data relatively speaking. Is there a reason not to keep it on your present machine and do the above? Cost? IIRC you can get a 1 tb m.2 for under $150.