I have backups on a backup hard drive and also synced to B2, but I am thinking about backing up to some format to put in the cupboard.

The issue I see is that if I don’t have a catastrophic failure and instead just accidentally delete some files one day while organising and don’t realise, at some point the oldest backup state is removed and the files are gone.

The other thing is if I get hit by a bus and no one can work out how to decrypt a backup or whatever.

So I’m thinking of a plain old unencrypted copy of photos etc that anyone could find and use. Bonus points if I can just do a new CD or whatever each year with additions.

I have about 700GB of photos and videos which is the main content I’m concerned about. Do people use DVDs for this or is there something bigger? I am adding 60GB or more each year, would be nice to do one annual addition or something like that.

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.itEnglish
    2·
    20 hours ago

    Tape isn’t readable by normal people even if they found it tomorrow with a drive already configured to be used.

    In 50 years good luck finding a working drive compatible with LTO4 when LTO32 is out (it’s backwards compatible only with previous gen).

    Unless you write on the box “here there are the keys for 100k bitcoins” they’ll just trash the tape

    • Dave@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
      2·
      19 hours ago

      Yeah from some other comments I think my initial plan (that I’ll research some more) will be:

      • buy a new HDD, format with ZFS or btrfs for error correction
      • copy data onto drive
      • store in cupboard with sata-> USB cable and instructions about what it is, how to access .
      • every year, load the previous year’s data onto the drive
      • about every 5 years, replace the drive by copying onto a brand new one (timeframe will likely depend on when my other HDD drives die)

      This way I should get a chance to update storage medium as technology changes as well.

      • Moonrise2473@feddit.itEnglish
        4·
        15 hours ago

        you need to use fat32 if you want normal people to access the files

        Otherwise, they will get the “You need to format the disk in drive D: before using it. Do you want to format it?” dialog, they blindly click “yes”, then they will mumble to themselves “weird, he left behind a massive collection of blank drives…”

        • PassingThrough@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          This is why I can’t/don’t have a lot of the “best practices” in my family archive. I’m not encrypting local drives, I’m not using BTRFS, or a ZFS pool. If I did I’d have to ensure my Will provided for the lawyer to hire a tech shop to help recover them. No, exFAT and NTFS, in the clear so those left behind can just plug them in and get to making their own copies. Otherwise the archive would die with me.

          Does that mean someone could steal my drives and go through my family photos? Sure. I hope it brings them much guilt, something a garbled encrypted drive could never do.

        • Dave@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
          1·
          5 hours ago

          Oh shit you’re right. Argh ok I’m going to have to rethink that. Two drives and something to compare against each other to check for errors. I’m not sure about FAT32 as there are some multi-GB video files. Shit.

          • PassingThrough@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            3 hours ago

            exFAT is a newer and viable alternative to FAT32, with better size limits and some pretty good cross-platform capabilities. That said, if your primary access is through Windows, NTFS may have some better features and is at least read-only on other platforms.

            • Dave@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
              1·
              2 hours ago

              I don’t use Windows, I’m just thinking of someone needing to be able to pick up and use a drive, and for most people it’s going to be Windows.

              Maybe I just need to leave instructions that specify it needs to be my laptop they use to get the photos off.