What medium for "forever" backup?

Messages
10,339
Name
Jonathan
Edit My Images
Yes
I'm sunsetting my iMac and want to take one last "forever" backup of the 1TB fusion drive prior to reformat and sale.

I have everything I *think* I need off the machine in multiple places - this would be a backup in case I've forgotten something important.

Would you use spinning metal or SSD for this? If I stick either of those in a drawer for 5 years which is more likely to work when I get it out?

Speed of access isn't a factor, price isn't (really) a factor, longevity is. In the old days I'd just burn it to a few DVDs but it would take many and I can't see me having a DVD drive in 5 years - but I bet I'll have USB.
 
I'm sunsetting my iMac and want to take one last "forever" backup of the 1TB fusion drive prior to reformat and sale.

I have everything I *think* I need off the machine in multiple places - this would be a backup in case I've forgotten something important.

Would you use spinning metal or SSD for this? If I stick either of those in a drawer for 5 years which is more likely to work when I get it out?

Speed of access isn't a factor, price isn't (really) a factor, longevity is. In the old days I'd just burn it to a few DVDs but it would take many and I can't see me having a DVD drive in 5 years - but I bet I'll have USB.
Print your images...
 
I'm sunsetting my iMac and want to take one last "forever" backup of the 1TB fusion drive prior to reformat and sale.

I have everything I *think* I need off the machine in multiple places - this would be a backup in case I've forgotten something important.

Would you use spinning metal or SSD for this? If I stick either of those in a drawer for 5 years which is more likely to work when I get it out?

Speed of access isn't a factor, price isn't (really) a factor, longevity is. In the old days I'd just burn it to a few DVDs but it would take many and I can't see me having a DVD drive in 5 years - but I bet I'll have USB.


I have a couple of backups like this which I've kept stored for years. I'm a terrible data hoarder... I just use a folder on my NAS. It's called "archived backups" and it literally only contains full backups of old machine data (mine, the wife's and the kids). The NAS has RAID in case of disk failure, but there are 4 WD Reds in there (8Tb) that just tick over year after year. With it being the NAS, I know if it's working day to day, so know that if I need to, I can get to it anytime.
 
Speed of access isn't a factor, price isn't (really) a factor, longevity is. In the old days I'd just burn it to a few DVDs but it would take many and I can't see me having a DVD drive in 5 years - but I bet I'll have USB.
USB is very old technology. I wouldn't get on a new machine having it in 5 years time.
 
If you are really serious about keeping data 'forever' I would keep a 'rolling' backup on several devices/media formats and check/refresh/replace them at regular intervals. Just having a single backup (even RAID protected) is short sighted.

This article is quite helpful

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...y-digital-photos-for-ever-external-hard-drive

The idea of keeping one of your backup copies on an in-use NAS or PC is a good one, in that you will know when it fails (because it will eventually), with NAS RAID redundancy you should have time to recover from an HDD failure or take another backup asap. If the NAS hardware platform itself fails you would need to be able to 'port' the HDD to a replacement NAS, which might turn out to be difficult depending upon how old the NAS is.

In a NAS device I would be tempted to mirror (RAID 1) a pair of equivalent size devices from different vendors or at least different batches of drives, rather than have all drives bought at the same time.
When I worked in IT we once had a major issue when a whole very large batch of HDD failed in a very short period of time, causing chaos and serious damage to the vendors reputation.
 
Last edited:
Print your images...

Honestly, I have the images covered :)

USB is very old technology. I wouldn't get on a new machine having it in 5 years time.

I'd be happy to bet all the moey in my pocket that in 5 years' time if my computer doesn't have USB I'll be able to get an adapter.

You probably want to do more than format the drive to sell the Mac:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-wipe-a-mac-hard-drive/

Thanks. Yes, I'll do more than format it.

If you are really serious about keeping data 'forever' I would keep a 'rolling' backup on several devices/media formats and check/refresh/replace them at regular intervals. Just having a single backup (even RAID protected) is short sighted.

Interesting point about the in use RAID. However, while the data may turn out to be useful - it won't be *that* useful. I can't imagine having forgotten anything worth more than (say) £200. Easily worth a USB drive - not really worth the cost of active RAID. My time in IT suggests that the best way to preserve the life of a hard drive is not to use it.
 
Hard drives can and will fail even in long term offline storage. The motor and servo bearings can become stiff leading to data errors when spun up. At least modern drives no longer suffer from 'stiction' . How you store HDD can affect their long term viability, vibration & shock, temperature, and humidity can affect them. Exposure to very strong magnetic fields can be harmful & lead to accelerated decay in magnetic stability...... i.e. data loss

It is generally recommended that you attach & 'spin up' archive HDD periodically (every 6 months or so) to ensure they are still usable.

Also you need to ensure you would have an appropriate drive interface, SCSI, IDE, SATA or USB available with driver support for which every operating system you are using
 
It is generally recommended that you attach & 'spin up' archive HDD periodically (every 6 months or so) to ensure they are still usable.

I think my original question actually becomes "are mechanical drives more reliable in the long term then SSDs?". Gut feel says SSDs should be better because they have fewer moving parts but somehow I just don't trust them...…….
 
When I studied computing we had one of the first Winchester hard drives in the country, it was 40mb. The guys from the local insurance company came to look at it in awe and amazement... Their equivalent was housed on a whole floor of a building

Next we had floppy Disks, then we had the little cartridge type floppy Disks. Then internal hard drives and cds

Then dvds, blueray... It goes on and on

The only viable way to have forever backup is to move the data onto the next media, whilst both media are fully supported, then test the backups

Sometimes that will also mean transforming the format of the data too

That's a long term commitment
 
In 10 years time it will still be easy to access a device which has USB. It may not be latest machine, but if you needed a machine, a serviceable machine with USB ports will be easy to obtain from the secondhand market.
 
Hard drives can and will fail even in long term offline storage. The motor and servo bearings can become stiff leading to data errors when spun up. At least modern drives no longer suffer from 'stiction' . How you store HDD can affect their long term viability, vibration & shock, temperature, and humidity can affect them. Exposure to very strong magnetic fields can be harmful & lead to accelerated decay in magnetic stability...... i.e. data loss

It is generally recommended that you attach & 'spin up' archive HDD periodically (every 6 months or so) to ensure they are still usable.

Also you need to ensure you would have an appropriate drive interface, SCSI, IDE, SATA or USB available with driver support for which every operating system you are using
So is it worth using ssd then?
 
At least modern drives no longer suffer from 'stiction' .
I was once given a MiniScribe 20Mb to look at that had been suffering from that. The owner had found taking the top off and oiling the platters made the drive unreadable, which was why they passed it to me...
 
It's not always hardware failure - I have a perfectly good raid system that is considered end of life by Promise Technology with 12 TB of data on it and apparently it won't work if I upgrade to Mac OS Catalina - or at least the software that manages the drives won't. (not the only issue, lots of manufacturers are not supporting it or updating drivers - think they just see it as a way to make you buy new ones )

The only viable way to have forever backup is to move the data onto the next media, whilst both media are fully supported, then test the backups
Good advice!
 
As already commented there is no 'forever' backup solution, storage is cheap so keep moving your data to newer technologies and ensure that you always have multiple copies (in/on more than one format), both onsite and offsite.
 
Hi, last year I stored all my audio files on an SSD. I will use a new one after 5 years, and will also keep the previous one.

When my currently used (since Jan. 2019) hard drive for pics is full, I will migrate the data to an SSD. I always use new cards, when they are full. The old ones are a kind of fall-back backup.

So, this is my last hard drive, which is a little sad for me, because I used to work in IT storage ... ---

(My backups I used to keep in my company desk, which was in a restricted access area.)
 
I have not tried to use SSD for long term offline storage, I treat SSD technology with the same degree of suspicion as all other recording technologies, I will not rely on a single backup on any media or format.

I use SSD for performance, if I were to consider SSD for long term storage I would probably keep it powered on 24x7 but offline apart from periodically rewriting the data from another backup copy. I find electronics more reliable when not subjected to being temperature variations associated with power on/off cycles.

A quick search in the Internet reveals a variety of opinions about how durable SSDs are in a powered off state, draw your own conclusions.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/292...nt-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/205382-ssds-can-lose-data-in-as-little-as-7-days-without-power

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hard-drives-ssds-flash-drives-how-long-will-your-storage-media-last/

https://www.quora.com/How-long-can-SSD-store-data-without-power-Can-data-be-recovered-from-SSD
 
Last edited:
I think my original question actually becomes "are mechanical drives more reliable in the long term then SSDs?". Gut feel says SSDs should be better because they have fewer moving parts but somehow I just don't trust them...…….

How much data are we talking about?

An SD card will last about 10 years, an SSD less than that.

An M-Disc will last 1332 years, but can only hold 25GB per disc - https://amzn.to/2tSedZ3
 
Hi, long-term storage and archiving are complex topics ...

If you are a professional photographer and (you think) all your pictures are part of the world cultural heritage, you should use a vaulting company specializing in long-term
storage solutions. They use bunkers or caves in mountains, and to be on the safe side, you should use another company on another continent, also...

Archiving raises the question how circumspect (or paranoid) one wants to or can afford to be ...

Discussions typically focus on the media. However, one must also be able to access the data, meaning systems, operating system software, storage hardware, and manufacturer support.

Enterprise IT uses tape for archiving. Unfortunately, these machines are not consumer-grade. (Otherwise, I would have one.)

M-Disc I do not use. (I still have some somewhere, to be thrown away.) To be on the the safe side, one should also have (at least) another drive, which will be supported in future, hopefully.

SD cards I replace and keep when they are full.

SSD I use for archiving. Long-term reliability depends on usage patterns. Heavy writing leads to earlier failure, however. But this is not the case when they are used for archiving.

Manufacturers' guarantees are not worth much. If the medium fails in the period covered, and if you have kept the warranty document, you get a new medium.

No manufacturer recovers your data.

Circumspection (or paranoia) might suggest to use at least two SSDs, from different manufacturers with different component suppliers.

The only thing I am certain about is that long term storage archiving will always involve migrations.

But these are just the simple thoughts of a hobby photographer ...
 
Last edited:
I'd use a cloud based solution, assuming you have the upload capability to do so. Make looking after the actual physical backups someone else's problem
 
I'd use a cloud based solution, assuming you have the upload capability to do so. Make looking after the actual physical backups someone else's problem


Exactly this. If you want to access it in 10 years with no issues then Cloud is your best bet. Most large enterprise companies are moving to cloud storage - IGNORE what Banks do as they have to be (rightly) a lot more zealous on how its stored..
The beauty of this is you will be able to upscale to whatever size you need.
 
The only issue I have with the Cloud is you may be held to ransom by the service provider, and they are not infallible. Of course you could use the Cloud as well as a local backup as an extra level of security.
 
Just a thought if you are keeping files for 15-20 years will the then software be able to read the backups?
 
I'm sunsetting my iMac and want to take one last "forever" backup of the 1TB fusion drive prior to reformat and sale.

I have everything I *think* I need off the machine in multiple places - this would be a backup in case I've forgotten something important.

Would you use spinning metal or SSD for this? If I stick either of those in a drawer for 5 years which is more likely to work when I get it out?

Speed of access isn't a factor, price isn't (really) a factor, longevity is. In the old days I'd just burn it to a few DVDs but it would take many and I can't see me having a DVD drive in 5 years - but I bet I'll have USB.

Well, I would suggest SSD.

First of all, as anyone else, such as @broc would say "Hard drives can and will fail even in long term offline storage. The motor and servo bearings can become stiff..."

Anything that involves moving parts, such as a HDD, a SLR/DSLR, a washing machine, a car, would need to be used once in a while to stop the moving parts become stiff. That would be why people who own guns tend to keep them oiled when not using much, but you can't open and oil the HDD to stop it becoming stiff.

On top of that, you mention "in a drawer for 5 years" and I'm guessing you're going to be opening and closing the drawer almost every day or every few days for 5 years, all that movement, will be knocking the HDD about. May as well save the bother by shanking the HDD like a cocktail!!

I figure SSD is better, no moving parts to get stiff and no moving parts that could be damaged by movement.
 
Back
Top