I agree, the only legitimate long term storage solution is to continually migrate the data to new storage solutions

 

they are similiar because they use magnetic tape, other than that everything is completely different including transport,writing, error correction etc. it like comparing a horse and and a rhinocereus, they both have 4 feet, but are more dissimiliar than similiar.

 

thass a lot a floppy disks......

 

HHD, Because SSD will act like it's working perfectly until it suddenly loses massive amounts of data. When HHD needs replacing you usually get little glitches and warning signs.

 

so you are saying use Hard Disk Drives cause they retain data longer and won't fail due to electrical discharge or too many terrabytes written to the cells?

 

a hdd going bad is like a long relationship falling apart, there are lots of signs and best not to ignore them or there will be tears.
An SDD failure is like a lightning bolt strike, what once was is no more, and there is no getting it back, and it happened in seconds, not days or months.

 

For some, a hard drive crash is also a new beginning and a liberation! My friend's hard drive went up in smoke, and I've also had a cable fire in my PC. An unpleasant noise is when the spindle of the hard drive rattles and the PC stays black.

The free program "CrystalDisInfo" shows you the condition and lifespan of your hard drive.
If there are errors, you still have time to save the data or buy a new hard drive.

 

1.FreeFileSync
2. Important Data : Multiple HDD twins (same model and same size)
3. Index the drives with any indexing software to browse those drives offline
4. System backups 1:1 backups of the OS drive on 2.5" hdd ( being much cheaper and more lasting than SSD's)
5. System Backups 1:1 backups of the working Data Drive on 2.5" hdd.
6. Keep the drives offline and power them on every 3 months.

This is the best money and data backup system I use it is all manual no automatic nonsense.

Basically Backups all have a secondary HDD as backup, FreeFileSync is used to mirror and update the data from one drive to the other

Now you can use external usb cases adapters for SSD's or 2.5 HDD's this works great for laptop backups or Desktop. It's slower on USB vs internally copying but it gets the job done.

After switching to this method in 15 years have not opened up a laptop or Desktop ever to do any backups since it's all done with the USB adapters.

Seagate Drives 4 or the 6 TB ( CMR no SMR crap)
Multiple 2.5 hdd drives from previous laptops over the years ( some going back to 2007) in usb case adapters.
Multiple SSD 2.5" in USB enclosure

This way no more installing, no serials, no patching every system has a full backup so anything happens just copy from the backup with a usb boot tool and you are back in action with nothing out of place.

Backup your systems every week at least or every 4 days if you use your systems more.

 

Speaking of long term storage, the first thing you should take into account is how repairable is your storage in case it fails. For now, you can be 99% be sure, that even, if your HDD is dead you can get the information from it. Meanwhile in the most cases information from SSD is unrecoverable.

 

Bought a usb3 stick some months back. As I began copying files, I noticed it got blazing hot... hot enough to not be able to hold.
Looked it up to see if it was normal, and yes it was. People were concerned it could damage usb ports. I returned it and got usb2. Slower of course but ran cool. Only 64gb so the time it took to copy a few things onto it was no big deal.

 

Was in a moving accident 8 years ago. The van I rented got sideswiped throwing me out of control. Flipped onto its side, roof came off and all my shit was strewn out all over. A few of my external HDD's were mechanically damaged from impact. Desperate to get the files, I spent $100 for a recovery program. Instead of getting my files/folders back all with their names, everything had no identifying names, just long string of numbers. Would have had to look at each file, see what it was, name it properly, and then all the other files I may find that belong with it. (for example, a particular guitar instructional with 30 videos plus accompanied audio and pdf files). It would've taken me a few billion years of 24 hour days to do it, if it was even possible all files weren't corrupted. So I thought fuck it, and let it all go to the wind, lol.

 

Are we talking redundancy or lifespan? Not exactly the same thing.

Say your mainboard gets a major brown-out and fries... which drive is more likely to survive? The one directly connected on the board (nVme) or the sata cable HDD? Not difficult, but many have UPS' and circuit breakers to protect these days.
External backups provide longevity as long as the storage is good for them. Which is better in lifespan? - directly plugged in under continuous use? The SSD definitely providing it is looked after properly. No brainer for me.

 

Conincidentally, today I needed some data stored on a BluRay burned 9 years ago. I haven't used this disc since it was recorded. So, while many files read OK, one particular gave me CRC error (on the very same device it was burned on). (This was just some off-the-shelf media, not that special Japanese Panasonic disc for archival purposes).

This was nothing very important to me (otherwise it would be burned on Panasonic in 3 copies), but says a lot about general BluRay reliability when it comes to long term storage.

 

Thanks for your concern; I DO have a digital backup of everything digital of course, but I hadn't gotten around to backing up all the analog tape stuff, and there was tons of it (as I'm sure you would recall if you lived in that era - I was all analog until 2004).

I also kept several older computers in working order with sessions, samples, etc for archive retrieval, and those are gone.

That's life, but it's a hard blow - at my age especially - and yes, I had everything in storage exactly where you can imagine it was.

As concerns LTOs - I mentioned it solely for educational insight - I specified "large media organizations" to that effect. No private or commercial music operation that I know would consider it. Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, WB..., that's a different realm, but even UMG got burnt when their warehouses went up in flames in 2008 if memory serves.

 

Back when downloads started, I burned a lot of things onto CDs and DVDs. Nobody knew whether these websites existed. I have a big box full of CDs in paper sleeves, some of which are also labeled, but finding something specific is very difficult, sometimes I have to put lots of CDs/DVDs into the drive and then search through them, which is very time-consuming. I also had losses or unreadable CD DVD Blu Rays. max 1-3 out of a hundred!!!

So labeling them correctly is important in any case. I burned a lot of important data onto Blu-Ray again and stored some on SSDs in a fireproof case, which is waterproof and fireproof.

If burglars clear out my apartments, everything is gone. I have zero trust in online storage, I think that's a good thing, the risk of companies going bankrupt, being hacked or the company itself burning down is too great.

 

Last edited: Feb 7, 2025

Sorry friend, I apparently had horse blinders on regarding the thread topic and was myopic on the digital data storage, and not the analog...

I too have legacy systems on ice for the same reasons you have had them etc, and ug, yeah... complete kick in the nuts and horrible for you to have lost them.

(and oh yeah, I know what you meant regarding LTO and whatnot, and yeah, a fair amount of stuff was lost a few times I thought over the last few decades in regards Hollywood /Los Angeles regarding this iirc, would have to go back and research, but I do remember a lot of stuff being lost to time in that regard... and probably absolutely made the aforementioned companies take a harder look at their preservation plans...)

And to loop back, yeah, analog preservation of the kinda stuff we do can be so time consuming and expensive, and personally one doesn't just "make that time", and in the past I was tasked with organizing that for a particular band, and basically had to hire the right people to do so, (as you know not everyone knows how to calibrate machines, and let alone properly maintain checks and balances, and it's slow as f, expensive in terms of labor/time/effort etc.... and yeah, if it was just me doing just my own stuff, it would take forever... for me, I was early in on the digital world, but still tracked to 2" and whatnot often, but would transfer at the time, as I was prone to do edits and whatnot and then fly back or whatever, but yeah... I hear you... I'm pretty sure that while I have most or all of my own 2" tapes backed up on drives, I certainly don't have all the 1" /1/2" masters or whatever duped and properly taken care of in that regard either.... and I have a few friends that lost their masters in the UMG fire, and that really sucks for a lot of them... as a lot of options are off the table...

Regardless, sorry I didn't consider that in my response, and certainly did not mean to have any improper tone to your situation, and again, I'm really sorry for your loss, and hope you are navigating it in your head ok... as I just kinda go into a fog, or denial stage at first, as the different steps go...

best to you.

 

too much hassle man, i went back to floppy disks, I get them delivered by dump truck. I need a lot of them.

 

Im old in this business. I have stored data on CDs, DVDs, Internal HHDs, external HDDs and external SSDs... my conclusion is that they´ve all been good untill the day something went wrong - in one way or another.

No technology lasts forever but latest technology is often the best imho.

These days I store everything on external SSDs - fast transfer with usb3/4, affordable and can hold large amounts of data.

my 50 cents

 

if you think SSD can read/write fast, you should see how fast they can fail totally.. thats why its good to mix it up with HDD backups of SSDs, and if its really important, this thread has already offered several very good backup protocols and techniques.

relying on a single storage, method is like sitting on a one legged stool, it works until it fails.

 

CD Catalog expert, will allow you to create an easily searchable database of all your storage media.
give it a try its not very expensive at all for all the time and headaches it will save you.

http://www.zero2000.com/cd-catalog-expert/news.html