Apparently- from what I understand- the very best, most robust long-term data storage method in the world is... paper. Which unfortunately doesn't help us very much.

 

Hey mate, was 'up
It is very hard to brick a modern ssd, especially if you buy quality drives. You will have to either power it off for over a year or more, or exceed its rated life cycle. For instance, i have yet to see one Samsung drive fail and i have installed 60-70 of them the past 5 yrs.
Speaking about recent times, ssd controllers employ a plethora of automated functions that will prevent data from bricking. A major one is constantly allocating data to -considered- optimum cells for read and write purposes, so performance and ssd health are sustained while operating the drive.
Cheers

 

It's all about the Benjamins... I see 4TB SSDs now under $200 which is pretty amazing but it would still cost a lot to back up everything I've got. And now it looks like for not much more you can get a 20 TB mechanical drive. One drive like that would back up everything in the house pretty much.

 

Yup. I use two (a master and a safety) 6 TB SATA 3.5" HDD's for the longer term storage of machine backup images. Been using this system for going on 10 years now. Hasn't failed yet. Just make sure you use checksums for integrity checks to make certain the images you write to the archival medium are pristine. You should be using checksums for critical data written to ANY type of archival medium you use be it SSD, Optical, HDD, etc. Because all of them are subject to failure as none of them are perfect in any way shape or form.

 

do failure rates really matter? they're all low enough that they should be irrelevant if proper redundancy is in place

 

Well... Statistically they do. But the reality is a bit different. For instance, Seagate hdds are being accused by many individuals as reportedly having the highest failure rate like in ie. Backblaze's regular data reports. What these individuals don't take into account, is that Seagate drives are also the most used ones all over the industry, as they offer the best compromise between performance, endurance and price. My personal fav hdd is the Ironwolf Pro 16tb and in my tests i found it is a killer drive for NAS etc. I just wish i could afford 5-6 of them hehe.
Cheers

 

Old skool wax cylinder FTW

 

For me it's definitely SSD.
I've got like 10HDD's in my life and all of them failed at some point and everything was lost,
except the stuff I made backups from. Most case of issues was spontanious clicking of the writing head,
even if the HDD just was laying around. In 1 case the HDD's circuit board got fried when connecting it to a PC
and while the Disk was totally fine, I couldn't get any of my data until I bought an identical HDD to disassemble
it and use the board from that one in my fried HDD.

Since 7 years I'm going with SSD's only and not one of them failed till now.

 

You can use the failure rates as a semi-barometer of how good the storage medium is. That's about all they are useful for. For ANY given medium available to us mere mortals these days there are risks that come with each one. The key is mitigating the risk with common sense handling of the particular medium itself and the data you write to it. And yes, redundancy is a major plus in your favor. Your chances of success in the long run are ensured by orders of magnitude with each redundant device you employ.

Given that the storage device is in proper working order, the golden rules are;

1.) insure as best you can the integrity of the data you are writing to the medium
2.) monitor or check the data integrity after it is has been written.

As far as the rest of it goes it simply boils down to the quality or longevity of the device you are working with, and how comfortable you are storing your data on it. If you check around you'll find there are just as many horror stories about each available type of storage device. While one raves about their particular type of device, another will cite a failure scenario to compliment it.

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2025 at 12:19 AM

I agree

my point, that I probably was less clear about, was that with proper raid (etc), it matters less. especially when the majority of (non-end-of-lifetime) hdd failures are DOA that are less likely to cause data loss. buy whatever drives you can afford several of and make sure your data lives in more than one (hopefully fault tolerant) place

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2025 at 1:33 AM

Yeah, those are good drives. I've had real good luck of late with the X20/X22's etc (forgetting exactly in which amount or size), but obviously they are newer so... I'm just mad at myself for not getting a few late last summer and early fall, or like the Ironwolf's, to now look at them at a LOT more... (like I'm mad I didn't pick up more 4TB's at $140 or whatever they were around Black Friday 2023) oh well... just gotta wait it out, bite it and buy it, or seriously prune I suppose..

I guess the reason I have been buying so many drives over the last year was pretty much collating the boxes and boxes of old ones ranging in size from 1GB or less scsi drives lol to whatever in ssd's to hdd's in accordion size of different formats, and from samplers and older systems and tour drives and other backups and stuff I had put off for years...even old exabyte tapes, jazz/Zip drives, those 128mb opticals popular in the mid 90's etc.... but getting 18-20-22TB rectified enterprise drives from ServerPartDeals before they went up was a good price, and had just gotten a new system, and so more ssd's as could take more advantage and certain sales etc...

f, I got I think, let's see, I think 68TB online right now, and its just because I'm organizing and whatnot (half of that is obviously redundant as 1:1 backups) etc.. and yeah, it gets to be a lot, but a bunch of family archive stuff and decades of sessions etc... and I'm more then sure that another 1/3rd of that is probably redundant as well as folders within folders of something else backed up already, or can be tossed easily....).. but I'm not tossing family photo's/home movie archives or records I've done and whatever... and I just needed to try and get organized and had a little time....

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2025 at 1:47 AM

Shrines...the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine! Enjoy the joy!!

 

This is both a loaded and simple question. Loaded because there are tons of variables. Simple because of a simple rule: "Nothing exists in the digital realm unless it exists in three separate geophysical places."

Those of us in L.A. who, like me, lost their entire studio gear and instruments, would cry and laugh at your question: HD and SSD went up in flames just the same. I lost 35 years of audio recordings, compositions, and production sessions on two dozens drives.

Years ago, I wrote a technical response to a very big media client based in Dallas and Burbank, but with offices in 27 other US cities. Their question posed to me and other vendors was: "In the event that New York and Washington shall be destroyed, please state your redundancy and recovery strategy and protocols." I kid you not (I lived in NY at the time, it was a chilling read).

So the answer is simple: you need to have two separate backups locally (one at your studio and one at your house), but also remotely: for instance, once a year I backup all my photos and videos on a drive and I send it to (or drop it off at) my parents. They retired in another country - same continent, just far enough away that the L.A. fires or earthquakes won't reach them. So my photos and videos are safe with them. I also have two backups with me, on my laptop, and on a disk I travel with.

Since 2012, I've been using iCloud and since 2014, Amazon for my online backups.

So the SSD and HD question reflects a bit outdated thinking. Big Audio and Video (cinema) media groups also use LTO backups (LTO stands for Linear Tape-Open). Those require a dedicated air sealed and computer air conditioned room for the machinery to operate, plus a fire and flood proof room to store the LTO tapes, but those are graded to last 100+ years - and are overkill for us musicians.

Which brings us back to the simple rule: "Nothing exists in the digital realm unless it exists in three separate geophysical places." The medium itself doesn't matter - pick one that's convenient and flexible enough for you. Note: a skilled technician can salvage data from a damaged or dead HD, but no one can salvage data from a dead SSD, so maybe factor that in, if you can't afford cloud services.

 

LTO tapes are pretty much just cassettes with nicer tape inside that store a lot of data, and can be used anywhere cassettes would be safe to use

but that reinforces your point, those who care about their data do everything they can to provide the best environment for its continued existence

 

First of all, I'm sincerely sorry for your loss in Los Angeles, what area was your stuff based? I have many friends and colleagues that too lost their studios, homes, gear, and most everything precious, and it sucks.

I too have lost all in LA of all places, but a long time ago.

The 3-2-1 backup rule has been mentioned multiple times in this thread, and since you dealt with this before with a client and whatnot, did you just not follow the common thinking on this you know well in regards to your OWN work on drives etc?

The OP was asking a fairly simple question in regards to what I imagine will be an 8TB spinner solution or whatnot... I don't think they are going LTO at this point obviously as you mention... 3-2-1 is the way to go. Sure. And adhere to it.

I don't think it's a loaded question, or variables that realistically can't be covered with that haven't been answered. Obviously most or all of us have photo and whatnot backups to the cloud etc as is just as it goes.. Regardless of what I think of Bezo's or Apple etc, all my stuff is up there, and I'm sure a large % of peoples photos and whatnot are here. But that is a quintuple kinda backup as in at least 4 other places/locations/mediums/countries whatever... I don't count on the cloud for anything other than a Hail Mary I guess... as I've had it, and seen it, fail others... but that's a small sample set, and I do use cloud services for a lot of it, but it's ancillary to my (I guess now) 4-3-2-1.

With larger assets like audio/video that obviously can swell to multi 10's of TB's, I DO leave them in fire safes in other countries, in addition to having 2 copies local on different media, and another offsite or on the original drives. As living in LA as I did for over 10+ years, in addition to traveling all the time, things f'ing happen. Break-in's, fires, earthquakes, nonsense that you can't even plan for as you know etc.

That we know. You lose a drive once, it sucks, and you generally learn quickly to accommodate and calculate for what your 'acceptable' loss is in terms of your life's creative work and purchasing drives and following a plan, as you were asked previously and provided a technical response for... so you knew and thought through the scenario, how did you answer? and I understand financial and logistical issues regarding backups, but...man, I'm trying to process what you are dealing with on that right now, as maybe I didn't when it happened to me a long time ago... but I know and can be empathetic to how much it damn really sucks that you lost that amount of extremely important, essentially, lifetime of work... That is devastating. I absolutely feel for you, and I can't imagine much worse other than losing a loved one etc.

I hope there is something left or backed up or stashed or a friend has or at least the 2 track masters uploaded somewhere like dropbox or something.... as f... That is brutal. Hope you are getting through it.

 

I have a box full of HDDs, 3tb each, that I rarelly use nowadays

In the last 4 years I replaced them with SSDs and I can say the failure rate of the HDDs is much higher, dont look back.

but, the truth is there's a HUGE difference between brands and models.
Some SSDs are made to live longer, like the Patriot burst elite with 1.92tb, that is very different from the 2tb model.

I'm using now 4 Lexar ns100 2tb, made to live longer than the nq100 model. Love these SSDs from Lexar, really trustfull, years and years without a single error.