Tons of valuable advices. I second everything you say. I've kept archive of my files since 1997. That's almost my entire life. It's becoming harder and harder to archive due to file size. Even cloud storage doesn't enough space for what I store on hard drives. Back then, I loved the cd and dvd methods because it feel 100% secure.
@Henric AM Bronkhorst I have DVDs and CDs since 1997 with backup data still working. I usually purchased good brands such as Marxwell, Sony, etc. Anyway, I stopped using this format in the 2010s because there's no longer enough space to put everything I have.
@Henric AM Bronkhorst if you keep them in sunlight. My CDs and DVD are over 20 years old. Secret backups of originals (less useage) as well as keep them in a dark not damp place. Storing them in direct sunlight will rapidly decrease their lifespan. Same with blueray lifespan. Old sata mechanical drives are becoming the go to for long term storage as SSDs now have a limited lifespan.
On a podcast about backups I also heard that SSDs just loose memory over time of not being powered on. Might take over a year to be a noticeable effect, but they just loose the data, like a battery loosing charge, they said.
Long term archival is a science by its own right. In some applications, like OECD Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and EU/FDA Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) the long term means 15 yrs (GLP) or even more (e.g. 30 yrs for plasma donors' data in GMP). Having this in mind, it's not only about using different archival media and storage locations (yes, that is the best strategy though, to use multiple parallel archiving methods and locations) - you must be able to retrieve those data after 15/30 yrs. Which means you have to maintain somehow the original systems that created those data, you have to maintain somehow the hardware your data are depending on (you won't be able to read a CD without the drive, will you?), or you have to migrate your data to new systems from time to time (and don't forget to set the correct access rights in that new system!), as it comes necessary. And you have to ensure the right storage conditions continuously for each and every media type chosen for your purpose as inappropriate environmental conditions may corrupt your e-archive.
I'm just trying to organize several thousand personal photos, so it was helpful to know I really shouldn't just back to a flash drive. I'll buy another external hard drive. The last part of the video went over my head, with redundancy and cloud, etc. - but good to know there are such things. Many thanks for this!
Much as I abhor google, they still use a great idea: save to moderate-priced hardware, and mirror that save to a number of locations. My jukebox collection is in my car. It's also mirrored on a microcomputer, along with a flash copy in the safe deposit box. I don't use cloud storage, and I don't get virus since I evicted "windows."
Copy the binary data to diamond and keep doing either until you finish or die before but leave notes for others to keep doing the work if your data is still good by that point ☺️
The harder question is how we know sth is valuable. So many files, images, videos are like borderline, you never want to delete them but you never go back to them except for a very small portion.
That's called hoarding lol. You should choose what files are the ones you want and then keep those as the priority back up and the rest not worth worrying about so much.
I feel what the original comment was saying though. 95% of files are no risk to low risk. They are either clearly worth archiving, or clearly trash/temporary. In all likelihood you will not regret maintaining backups of the former, or trashing the latter. The other 5% is varying degrees of tricky. Is it something that seems important now, but in 3 months you will already not care, but if you archived it, you may waste large amounts of storage on something you may not have a chance to purge and reuse. Alternatively, I have definitely trashed something I considered unimportant, or assumed would always be available where I got it (I was naive once), only to deeply regret not having an accessible backup down the road. Overall, not a huge issue most of the time, but it is enough to waste time on paralyzed by anxiety about choices that may or may not actually matter.
@@WATCHINGTHEWATCHERS tbh thats what i like about storage, its so cheap that i can hoard all the data i want without ever running out of space, so ill keep doing that lol
Downloading from Onedrive or something like Backblaze is very slow are fraught with problems. I do use Backblaze and I also use multiple onsite and offsite Seagate 4 TB and 5 TB hard drives. In addition, I use Verbatim M-disc DVDs (hundreds of years of protection) 25GB, 50GB.
I don't care about fast or slow drive. It means nothing to me. I just care about reliable permanent storage. M-Disc baby. The only storage that survived hurricane Katrina was optical. M-disc has been tested by the navy and can survive heat up to 930 degrees Fahrenheit and sub zero temperatures. Pefect for keeping in the storage for literally 1,000 years and if that claim is wrong, even 10% of that claim which is 100 years will out live me, hdd's, ssd's and typical dye-based optical. No brainer. If you're super Crack-Head paranoid, just burn a new M-disc every 50 years, lol...or upgrade to the new archival standard of that time.
Only way to go is with DVD archival gold discs. Takes a long time but you’ll never have to worry about it. Data recovery on platter HDD’s is SUPER expensive when (not if) a mechanical failure occurs. Not to mention if one of your discs is unreadable, you’ll only lose 4.7gb. Not TB’s of data. I make two copies of everything on these and also have numerous external HDD and SSD for redundancy. I have lost so many years of data one time. Never again. Took me years to build it all back and I don’t have many years left. So my time has become more valuable. I’d rather spend it pulling data a little slower off of a DVD then having to pay thousands of dollars to recover a busted HDD. Of course I’m not archiving multiple TB’s of data either. Blu ray would be great if I could afford a commercial blu ray burner. Since the consumer grade ones aren’t any good for this purpose.
Don't seriously don't. I think of flash drives and memory sticks as temporary storage shuttles. If I need to get a file from point A -> B without the hassle of burning a CD or using a network connection. There is two main reasons I don't do this. First, I have had many flash drives and disks die over the years. I just can't read the data anymore, it becomes corrupted etc. Second, its difficult to find things on flash disk. A handful of usb sticks either need to be painstakingly plugged in and checked for files, or you need to put tags on each disk and label the content. Also, keep in mind the USB standard may not always be around. Think about a drawer full of USB sticks with stuff on them from the last 10 years. Your computer dies, you go out and buy a new one but the new computer only has USB-C, and no one is selling a USB dock with the correct connectors. (Unlikely in the next 5-10 years, but still possible.). Right now would you have the ability to read the data off of a FireWire Hard Drive as an example.
The best way to backup is the 3-2-1 method. That means the data need 3 copies, 2 of them are on 2 different media devices (like you said above) at the same location in case one of the devices experience failure AND one copy is stored offsite such as a cloud backup service or at friend's house in case natural disaster (like fire) occurs at the place has that 2 copies.
I have 8 portable hardrives and all important data is backed up minimum of 3 times. I made a CD backup about 8 years ago and then wrapped it in plastic. I might check how it's doing.
I've had an external HDD for about 14 years that I maybe use once every couple of months and it's held up as of now. I just realized it doesn't last forever so I need to start making backups
Partly. It usually works great in the short run. But I put about 100 drives in storage. After 10 years about 20 % of them failed. Best archiving and backup solution is still LTO. Not perfect, because you have to maintain an expensive drive with an old interface, but the likelyhood, that the data is still on the tape, is very, very high. LTO also does immediate read back while writing, something hard drives can't do. So the chances of a flipped bit are very small with LTO.
@@oschiri66Why isn’t archival grade DVD not mentioned? I understand it’s slow and you need ALOT of them for massive data storage. But wouldn’t this be the best choice for reliable data recovery? Taiyo Yuden or gold discs offer superior protection from oxidation and other environmental factors. As long as they’re kept in a cool dark place, they should last a lifetime. Am I wrong?
All you guys talk about clean slate solutions. When I start from scratch. But do you realize that, I believe, most people search for these videos because they have a PILE of hard drives and are looking for a solution to organize the EXISTING MESS?!. Like some hoarder that seeks help. I have literally 12 hard drives that needs organizing. Now what? That would be helpful.
Well, I hear you. The thing is you can either leave the past the way it is and start new or reorganize what you have. You have to come up with a naming convention that works for you and get everything organized and backup. We spend time going back through our old stuff and getting it into a new organized system. It's the only way unless you are going to leave it be and move forward.
Hey, if u have so many harddrives think about getting an "BIG" Nas fitting all your stuff at one Place and Group them by folder or Archives makes organizing a lot easier.
I must have about 5tb minimum of data backed up 3 times on 8 portable hardrives. If having over a thousand DVDs and over thousand music tracks and in the space of half a shoe box takes up to much space then that's odd.
LTO tape is robust, used by financial institutions to archive decades of data for that reason. The problem for lesser mortals are the drives. These will a) fail and b) become obsolete. That means buying new drives every few years and re-recording the existing tapes onto the latest version of LTO. The drives are expensive. Thousands of dollars (or pounds!). There are different levels of SSD technology and safety, the more you pay the better it is but they all lose the electrical charge that holds the data given enough time. They can be refreshed fairly easily though. Hard drives are not immune to leaking data, the magnetic flux encoding can dissipate over time and the mechanics can fail due to not being used - bearings dry up for example. There are proprietary optical disk systems - much better than DVD/Blu-ray - with good archival durations but again the drive mechanisms are not cheap and they are not really suitable for high volume video raw data. Probably the safest reasonable cost approach is to not only have multiple copies stored in different locations (Fire/theft protection) but to also use multiple technologies that fit within your budget constraints. Do note though that a data validation process has to be run on a regular basis or you may find that they have all failed and there are no viable copies extant to recover data from. Frankly, for photos one approach is probably two large printed copies made on archival paper and stored in environmentally controlled conditions apart from each other. For video the problem is a lot more challenging.
Oh no, I have lost photos and videos on an external hard drive after just a couple years. Don't do it. People's on other websites have reported the same thing. If they fail, it is prohibitively expensive to attempt to get some of the data. Most of it is not retrievable. I'm sure pro movie companies do not use local external hard drives. I have tapes from college that still play well. B
I could not disagree more....as a person who DEMANDS archival storage capabilities CDs DVDs hard drives, tapes and most everything is NOT archival! Please do NOT pay attention to this guys very bad advice! I have been doing IT for over 50 years. And NONE of what he is saying is worth a damn...... The BEST manufacturer of DVDs are (Tayo Yuden - now CMC) there is Type-A and Type-B media. The best Type-A media only lasts 25 years. This guy totally misses the boat on archival. Speed is NOT the issue, it never is for archival. The issue is whether you can recall data at all. I worked at a company that archived 50GB/day. They had tapes, disks, CDs all over the place. Clearly a disaster. I created a process that could provide fail safe archival for 1000 years. I could pull up ANY file from millions of archival file in seconds and it does NOT use the cloud for ANY backups. (Clouds are not safe)
yes clouds (in countries where the internet is not reliable or secure) are for people who don't value their data true however your claim for 1000 year backups seems far fetched. If you can get 20+ years time to back it up to some more newer media to ensure its longeivity.
@@benwalker4660 its not my claim: www.mdisc.com/ The idea is to archive your data on something that can be archived. Currently standard media want laat long at all. I do t know what technology will be available in 50 years. The way technology changes so rapidly, the media will out survive the drive! So maybe in 30 years you will have to move your archival data to the next survivable device .i just want my archival data to be placed on the longest available storage media and right now, that is M-disc
@@rty1955 demons drive the user mad- 1000 years even civilizations dont last that long. The hands of man cast upon stone does not even last a eternity.
@@benwalker4660 even if they last 40-50yrs its better than a couple with typical storage medium. You cant take EVERYTHING literal. After 20 years we may not have any DVD drives around to read it, just like VHS tapes that you entrusted your memories to. The point is to STANDARDIZE your backup medium to the longest possible, most portable medium around and right now, that is m-disc
Tons of valuable advices. I second everything you say. I've kept archive of my files since 1997. That's almost my entire life. It's becoming harder and harder to archive due to file size. Even cloud storage doesn't enough space for what I store on hard drives. Back then, I loved the cd and dvd methods because it feel 100% secure.
@Henric AM Bronkhorst I have DVDs and CDs since 1997 with backup data still working. I usually purchased good brands such as Marxwell, Sony, etc. Anyway, I stopped using this format in the 2010s because there's no longer enough space to put everything I have.
@Henric AM Bronkhorst if you keep them in sunlight. My CDs
and DVD are over 20 years old. Secret backups of originals (less useage)
as well as keep them in a dark not damp place. Storing them
in direct sunlight will rapidly decrease their lifespan. Same with
blueray lifespan.
Old sata mechanical drives are becoming the go to for long term storage
as SSDs now have a limited lifespan.
@Henric AM Bronkhorst Some do, depends on how they are kept. I stacked them in the large CD holders and then wrapped them in plastic.
Just Memorize every one and zero.
Peak excellence
This is the ultimate advice. Nobody can steal your files if they aren’t saved anywhere.
On a podcast about backups I also heard that SSDs just loose memory over time of not being powered on. Might take over a year to be a noticeable effect, but they just loose the data, like a battery loosing charge, they said.
Long term archival is a science by its own right. In some applications, like OECD Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and EU/FDA Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) the long term means 15 yrs (GLP) or even more (e.g. 30 yrs for plasma donors' data in GMP). Having this in mind, it's not only about using different archival media and storage locations (yes, that is the best strategy though, to use multiple parallel archiving methods and locations) - you must be able to retrieve those data after 15/30 yrs. Which means you have to maintain somehow the original systems that created those data, you have to maintain somehow the hardware your data are depending on (you won't be able to read a CD without the drive, will you?), or you have to migrate your data to new systems from time to time (and don't forget to set the correct access rights in that new system!), as it comes necessary. And you have to ensure the right storage conditions continuously for each and every media type chosen for your purpose as inappropriate environmental conditions may corrupt your e-archive.
I'm just trying to organize several thousand personal photos, so it was helpful to know I really shouldn't just back to a flash drive. I'll buy another external hard drive. The last part of the video went over my head, with redundancy and cloud, etc. - but good to know there are such things. Many thanks for this!
If you have Amazon Prime consider using their photo cloud for generic pictures you have as an affordable option
Tape is good for archiving.
Hard disks are better for backing up.
Unfortunately, most people don't know the difference.
GREAT advice, Thank you!!
You are welcome
Much as I abhor google, they still use a great idea: save to moderate-priced hardware, and mirror that save to a number of locations. My jukebox collection is in my car. It's also mirrored on a microcomputer, along with a flash copy in the safe deposit box. I don't use cloud storage, and I don't get virus since I evicted "windows."
Copy the binary data to diamond and keep doing either until you finish or die before but leave notes for others to keep doing the work if your data is still good by that point ☺️
Keep dreaming lol.
Excellent presentation!
The harder question is how we know sth is valuable. So many files, images, videos are like borderline, you never want to delete them but you never go back to them except for a very small portion.
That's called hoarding lol. You should choose what files are the ones you want and then keep those as the priority back up and the rest not worth worrying about so much.
I feel what the original comment was saying though.
95% of files are no risk to low risk. They are either clearly worth archiving, or clearly trash/temporary. In all likelihood you will not regret maintaining backups of the former, or trashing the latter.
The other 5% is varying degrees of tricky. Is it something that seems important now, but in 3 months you will already not care, but if you archived it, you may waste large amounts of storage on something you may not have a chance to purge and reuse. Alternatively, I have definitely trashed something I considered unimportant, or assumed would always be available where I got it (I was naive once), only to deeply regret not having an accessible backup down the road.
Overall, not a huge issue most of the time, but it is enough to waste time on paralyzed by anxiety about choices that may or may not actually matter.
@@WATCHINGTHEWATCHERS tbh thats what i like about storage, its so cheap that i can hoard all the data i want without ever running out of space, so ill keep doing that lol
Downloading from Onedrive or something like Backblaze is very slow are fraught with problems. I do use Backblaze and I also use multiple onsite and offsite Seagate 4 TB and 5 TB hard drives. In addition, I use Verbatim M-disc DVDs (hundreds of years of protection) 25GB, 50GB.
Archival HDDs for data centers. Got a few Petabytes stored, meant to last a few decades.
Thank you, but may I ask how to archive a RUclips playlist?
I don't care about fast or slow drive. It means nothing to me. I just care about reliable permanent storage. M-Disc baby. The only storage that survived hurricane Katrina was optical. M-disc has been tested by the navy and can survive heat up to 930 degrees Fahrenheit and sub zero temperatures. Pefect for keeping in the storage for literally 1,000 years and if that claim is wrong, even 10% of that claim which is 100 years will out live me, hdd's, ssd's and typical dye-based optical. No brainer. If you're super Crack-Head paranoid, just burn a new M-disc every 50 years, lol...or upgrade to the new archival standard of that time.
Thank you sir!
Thank you. Very cool and informative.
Only way to go is with DVD archival gold discs. Takes a long time but you’ll never have to worry about it. Data recovery on platter HDD’s is SUPER expensive when (not if) a mechanical failure occurs. Not to mention if one of your discs is unreadable, you’ll only lose 4.7gb. Not TB’s of data. I make two copies of everything on these and also have numerous external HDD and SSD for redundancy. I have lost so many years of data one time. Never again. Took me years to build it all back and I don’t have many years left. So my time has become more valuable. I’d rather spend it pulling data a little slower off of a DVD then having to pay thousands of dollars to recover a busted HDD. Of course I’m not archiving multiple TB’s of data either. Blu ray would be great if I could afford a commercial blu ray burner. Since the consumer grade ones aren’t any good for this purpose.
The ancient egyptians knew how to store data long term.
Copying to CDs is faster than my internet speed
Where do you buy a tape drive? I can only find the tape you put into the tape drive.
What do you think of storing documents and files on to flash drives or memory stick cards?
Don't seriously don't. I think of flash drives and memory sticks as temporary storage shuttles. If I need to get a file from point A -> B without the hassle of burning a CD or using a network connection.
There is two main reasons I don't do this. First, I have had many flash drives and disks die over the years. I just can't read the data anymore, it becomes corrupted etc. Second, its difficult to find things on flash disk. A handful of usb sticks either need to be painstakingly plugged in and checked for files, or you need to put tags on each disk and label the content.
Also, keep in mind the USB standard may not always be around. Think about a drawer full of USB sticks with stuff on them from the last 10 years. Your computer dies, you go out and buy a new one but the new computer only has USB-C, and no one is selling a USB dock with the correct connectors. (Unlikely in the next 5-10 years, but still possible.). Right now would you have the ability to read the data off of a FireWire Hard Drive as an example.
What about M-disc?
M-Disc in my opinion the best way for long term data archive but I'd select two different brands of disc's and burn a copy to both.
@@bradbeckett Expensive though. I'd go for Archival DVDs
Fiber on NAS? How does that work? You need to take us through that!
The best way to store your data: two physical storage (of your choice) of the same data.
The best way to backup is the 3-2-1 method. That means the data need 3 copies, 2 of them are on 2 different media devices (like you said above) at the same location in case one of the devices experience failure AND one copy is stored offsite such as a cloud backup service or at friend's house in case natural disaster (like fire) occurs at the place has that 2 copies.
I have 8 portable hardrives and all important data is backed up minimum of 3 times. I made a CD backup about 8 years ago and then wrapped it in plastic. I might check how it's doing.
@@hunghoangmusic ok, I stand corrected.
The solutions are based on size of the backups.
Aren’t hard drives bad for archiving data if you aren’t going to start the drives up every couple weeks?
I've had an external HDD for about 14 years that I maybe use once every couple of months and it's held up as of now. I just realized it doesn't last forever so I need to start making backups
Partly. It usually works great in the short run. But I put about 100 drives in storage. After 10 years about 20 % of them failed. Best archiving and backup solution is still LTO. Not perfect, because you have to maintain an expensive drive with an old interface, but the likelyhood, that the data is still on the tape, is very, very high. LTO also does immediate read back while writing, something hard drives can't do. So the chances of a flipped bit are very small with LTO.
@@oschiri66Why isn’t archival grade DVD not mentioned? I understand it’s slow and you need ALOT of them for massive data storage. But wouldn’t this be the best choice for reliable data recovery? Taiyo Yuden or gold discs offer superior protection from oxidation and other environmental factors. As long as they’re kept in a cool dark place, they should last a lifetime. Am I wrong?
All you guys talk about clean slate solutions. When I start from scratch. But do you realize that, I believe, most people search for these videos because they have a PILE of hard drives and are looking for a solution to organize the EXISTING MESS?!. Like some hoarder that seeks help. I have literally 12 hard drives that needs organizing. Now what? That would be helpful.
It's a great idea for e new video!
I second that. Make a video about it.
Well, I hear you. The thing is you can either leave the past the way it is and start new or reorganize what you have. You have to come up with a naming convention that works for you and get everything organized and backup. We spend time going back through our old stuff and getting it into a new organized system. It's the only way unless you are going to leave it be and move forward.
Hey, if u have so many harddrives think about getting an "BIG" Nas fitting all your stuff at one Place and Group them by folder or Archives makes organizing a lot easier.
I must have about 5tb minimum of data backed up 3 times on 8 portable hardrives. If having over a thousand DVDs and over thousand music tracks and in the space of half a shoe box takes up to much space then that's odd.
he is doing an ok job...but if you want your files safe for 50 years...you need to store them on either dvd gold, or mdisk.
LTO tape is robust, used by financial institutions to archive decades of data for that reason. The problem for lesser mortals are the drives. These will a) fail and b) become obsolete. That means buying new drives every few years and re-recording the existing tapes onto the latest version of LTO. The drives are expensive. Thousands of dollars (or pounds!). There are different levels of SSD technology and safety, the more you pay the better it is but they all lose the electrical charge that holds the data given enough time. They can be refreshed fairly easily though. Hard drives are not immune to leaking data, the magnetic flux encoding can dissipate over time and the mechanics can fail due to not being used - bearings dry up for example. There are proprietary optical disk systems - much better than DVD/Blu-ray - with good archival durations but again the drive mechanisms are not cheap and they are not really suitable for high volume video raw data.
Probably the safest reasonable cost approach is to not only have multiple copies stored in different locations (Fire/theft protection) but to also use multiple technologies that fit within your budget constraints. Do note though that a data validation process has to be run on a regular basis or you may find that they have all failed and there are no viable copies extant to recover data from. Frankly, for photos one approach is probably two large printed copies made on archival paper and stored in environmentally controlled conditions apart from each other. For video the problem is a lot more challenging.
Oh no, I have lost photos and videos on an external hard drive after just a couple years. Don't do it. People's on other websites have reported the same thing. If they fail, it is prohibitively expensive to attempt to get some of the data. Most of it is not retrievable. I'm sure pro movie companies do not use local external hard drives. I have tapes from college that still play well. B
I like to archive my old minecraft worlds
write to cd? i wish i can do that to my 3tb of data
Actually you can. If you have files laefer than 4.7gb each they can easily be split in 4.7gb chunks and burned to M-disc
3:15 how to trigger PCMR
How the heck is that Apple monitor suspended???
It's on a extendable wall mount.
I could not disagree more....as a person who DEMANDS archival storage capabilities CDs DVDs hard drives, tapes and most everything is NOT archival!
Please do NOT pay attention to this guys very bad advice!
I have been doing IT for over 50 years. And NONE of what he is saying is worth a damn......
The BEST manufacturer of DVDs are (Tayo Yuden - now CMC) there is Type-A and Type-B media. The best Type-A media only lasts 25 years.
This guy totally misses the boat on archival. Speed is NOT the issue, it never is for archival. The issue is whether you can recall data at all.
I worked at a company that archived 50GB/day. They had tapes, disks, CDs all over the place. Clearly a disaster. I created a process that could provide fail safe archival for 1000 years. I could pull up ANY file from millions of archival file in seconds and it does NOT use the cloud for ANY backups. (Clouds are not safe)
yes clouds (in countries where the internet is not reliable or secure) are for people who don't value their data true however your claim for 1000 year backups seems far fetched. If you can get 20+ years time to back it up to some more newer media to ensure its longeivity.
@@benwalker4660 its not my claim:
www.mdisc.com/
The idea is to archive your data on something that can be archived. Currently standard media want laat long at all. I do t know what technology will be available in 50 years. The way technology changes so rapidly, the media will out survive the drive! So maybe in 30 years you will have to move your archival data to the next survivable device .i just want my archival data to be placed on the longest available storage media and right now, that is M-disc
Blue Nova is a coward that hides, rather than debates. Anyone who does that I would not listen to either
@@rty1955 demons drive the user mad- 1000 years even civilizations dont last that long. The hands of man cast upon stone does not even last a eternity.
@@benwalker4660 even if they last 40-50yrs its better than a couple with typical storage medium. You cant take EVERYTHING literal. After 20 years we may not have any DVD drives around to read it, just like VHS tapes that you entrusted your memories to. The point is to STANDARDIZE your backup medium to the longest possible, most portable medium around and right now, that is m-disc
Wtf happened to this guys nails? Just noticed half way through the video.
May be his spouse or daugther do a training in nail design and they needed a Guinea pig? But hey, may be he just likes it that way?
He talk too much!