Long term storage
- Thread starter wijcc
- Start date
Associate
In what sort of volumes and what are the access requirements?
Associate
Price per GB for HDD is still considerably less than SSD, so as you aren't expecting to access it very often (so don't need the speed of an SSD), HDD would probably be your better option. At that sort of volume, the difference in price isn't huge, though.
As it's for backup/archiving, somethng like a USB HDD would probably fit the bill. If you aren't backing up elsewhere, then maybe keep two and alternate them.
Stats on the lifetime of SSDs seem to concentrate on the amount of data written, as the cells degrade with every erase/write cycle. I couldn't see anything on the how long static data would stay, although apparently SSDs still need power to periodically refresh the cells; so for offline backup it seems HDD would probably keep data longer.
As it's for backup/archiving, somethng like a USB HDD would probably fit the bill. If you aren't backing up elsewhere, then maybe keep two and alternate them.
Stats on the lifetime of SSDs seem to concentrate on the amount of data written, as the cells degrade with every erase/write cycle. I couldn't see anything on the how long static data would stay, although apparently SSDs still need power to periodically refresh the cells; so for offline backup it seems HDD would probably keep data longer.
Soldato
- Joined
- 29 Dec 2009
- Posts
- 7,175
4TB or 5TB External HDD can be had for £60 one-off and 1TB of Redundant RAID-backed remote storage for just under £3 a month, I don't think that could be beaten.
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box
https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box
SLC could "cold store" data propably quite long time with big charge degradation tolerance of just two values.
But you won't really find even MLC drives with four separate charge/voltage levels per cells.
Don't know if there are any newer articles of data retention.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention
Associate
I've got 125GB of old stuff in S3 Glacier deep archive. Costs me 12p a month.
It will cost to retrieve stuff, and it's not instant retrieval..
retrieval requests are 0.00011 USD per item
retrieval transfer costs are 0.02 USD per GB
It will cost to retrieve stuff, and it's not instant retrieval..
retrieval requests are 0.00011 USD per item
retrieval transfer costs are 0.02 USD per GB
Man of Honour
Out of 10 3TB WD drives I have that are roughly 6-7 years old, I've seen two show a few read errors each. I think the general consensus is to replace HDDs about every 5 years, so I've not done bad.
SSDs, particularly modern TLC/QLC ones, are not great for cold storage. I've got a Samsung 840 EVO still in use and those were notorious for having issues after just a few months (they now rely on firmware to patrol the data). If they're kept powered on, data lifespan can be much longer, but they can also 'just die' with very little warning (I've had that happen), whereas HDDs tend to give some warning (unless you were unlucky enough to own a Deathstar).
SD cards are apparently rated for 5-10 years, but like all flash, that depends on how many write cycles its had. I had one SD card literally split in half, so I wouldn't count on that.
I use HDDs and backup some of that to the cloud. Given I currently have about 8TB in the cloud, I'm hoping I never have to do a cloud restore! I probably need to find a new provider, but not sure where to go with that much data.
SSDs, particularly modern TLC/QLC ones, are not great for cold storage. I've got a Samsung 840 EVO still in use and those were notorious for having issues after just a few months (they now rely on firmware to patrol the data). If they're kept powered on, data lifespan can be much longer, but they can also 'just die' with very little warning (I've had that happen), whereas HDDs tend to give some warning (unless you were unlucky enough to own a Deathstar).
SD cards are apparently rated for 5-10 years, but like all flash, that depends on how many write cycles its had. I had one SD card literally split in half, so I wouldn't count on that.
I use HDDs and backup some of that to the cloud. Given I currently have about 8TB in the cloud, I'm hoping I never have to do a cloud restore! I probably need to find a new provider, but not sure where to go with that much data.
OP says he needs occasional access so no point recommending S3 Glacier.
Guess that was same failure as I had fair dozen years ago:
Taking picture just suddenly made camera stuck with write indicator on and only way to get camera respond was removing battery.
Every picture taken up to that point, little under half of the card's capacity was perfectly accessible and you could write that much data to card.
Soldato
If I remember my IT GCSE correctly then the correct answer is a tape drive in an offsite fire proof safe.
In reality I'd probably go for cloud + hdd like you say. Possibly cloud + 2x hdds, going as far as keeping one of them somewhere else if it's personally valuable data that you really don't want to lose. Low capacity HDDs are cheap enough that you might as well.
In reality I'd probably go for cloud + hdd like you say. Possibly cloud + 2x hdds, going as far as keeping one of them somewhere else if it's personally valuable data that you really don't want to lose. Low capacity HDDs are cheap enough that you might as well.
Associate
I'm coming round to that idea about replacement too. At the moment, I'm at about 1Tb of data I want to keep, but my mirrored 2Tb drives are 8+yrs old running at 50K+ hours (5+ yrs) of on time. I had thought about getting much much larger replacement drives, but considering my space needs, I think I would be far better just getting smaller drives and replacing sooner down the line. I think at the 4Tb drives is the sweet spot for me in terms of price.
If it genuinely is critical then an O365 subscription is 55 quid a year (GroupOn Voucher) for 5TB.
Out of interest is there a difference between different m-discs are standard m-discs better/more reliable than m-disc BDXL?
Also I can see that you can pick-up usb dvd-burners which support m-disc what is the max capacity m-discs that they can burn? I am guessing that I need to get a blue-ray burner that supports m-disc BDXL for 100Gb?
Also I can see that you can pick-up usb dvd-burners which support m-disc what is the max capacity m-discs that they can burn? I am guessing that I need to get a blue-ray burner that supports m-disc BDXL for 100Gb?
Last edited: