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The original was posted on /r/datahoarder by /u/Game_Bird on 2024-09-06 16:43:39+00:00.

Hey all,

I’ve always been aware that external drives can fail, but I always thought it would be due to overuse, or poor storage, or something. But apparently no, even if you haven’t touched an external drive and kept it safe in its original box for years, it could still just… fail, and lose all its data. That’s a terrifying thought, as I have a bunch of old backup drives from school where I’ve been storing irreplaceable data from my family and my childhood and now I’m afraid to even check them. Not to mention, my current machine has paltry internal storage and I’ve been running off an external drive for years, and already feeling the need to go larger than the 4 TB I currently use.

What are the best ways to have a solid, trustworthy backup of old data that aren’t cloud based? And considering SSDs are still very expensive and don’t reach the storage heights of disk based drives, what’s the best option?

EDIT: What are the rates at which external drives fail? Should I get one mega drive to consolidate all my old drives, and replace it every 5 years or something?