Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Storage Media Life Expectancy: SSDs, HDDs \u0026 More!" video.

@weltsiebenhundert I don't like Backblaze, I lost a ton of data because of the weakness in their recovery method. There's a limited amount of time that you have to recover the files and the downloader was choking on the amount that I was trying to restore. It's OK, if you've got a separate backup for just large files, but it should never have come to that, especially due to the lack of proper notification at the time.
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I refuse to buy WD drives these days, because I've had so many of them fail and they dropped the warranty period due to the failures, so it's not like it was just me.
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@I_am_Raziel RAID is part of the solution, but you still need some method of identifying bitrot and correcting or restoring it. One of the great things about living now is that there are programs that can automatically go through and verify that files haven't changed unexpectedly. The main issues tend to be files that you do occasionally change and making sure that the checksums are updated to reflect that.
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Metal lasts longer, depending on what kind of metal you choose. Aluminum in particular lasts pretty much forever, as long as it isn't melted or crushed.
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@eichelbergergary That's fine for a copy. However, an entire retirement company had all of their files deleted by one of those companies due to a mistake in how they were provisioned. From what I understand, they had another copy of all that stuff, so they could restore it, but there were billions of dollars worth of retirement accounts that would have been in trouble otherwise.
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Drives last a lot longer if they've got clean power. So a sufficiently powerful power supply and a UPS / line conditioner makes a significant difference.
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@patdbean There's a surprising amount of math that goes into that. You have to have periodic full backups to reduce the risk of one of the incremental backups getting corrupted and leaving everything after that unrecoverable. That being said, you do need a local backup. The vast majority of data loss is due to fat fingering something and the backups sitting a few feet away are unaffected. The offsite copies are for things like burglaries where somebody steals the entire computer or where the building burns down and everything on site is potentially lost. But, since most of the time that doesn't apply, it's important to have an on site backup that's attached to the computer constantly backing things up, even though it doesn't provide protection against power surges or fires. It just makes it so fast to fix mistakes that were made in terms of accidental deletions.
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I recommend including DVDsig on the disk with the appropriate checksum files it generates. It makes it a lot easier to verify if the files are still good. Just run the program and it will tell you which ones aren't reading.
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@jego207 You should do that from time to time with any medium just because there's always the risk that some cosmic rays will damage an essential part of the medium. Most media types include some form of parity into the specification to address the likelihood of those particles interacting with it.
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@addydiesel6627 SSD as a backup is fine, you should be retrieving the backup periodically to verify anyways. Just leave it plugged in for a bit to let the drive retrim when you do so, or copy the files to a spare drive before putting the new copies back into storage. .
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IIRC, most of the failures tend to happen in the first couple years. There is no particular maximum life span, although it is a lot longer if you've got a UPS attached with a line conditioner. If you've got good power going in and reasonable heat dissipation, they can last for decades.
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@addydiesel6627 All media suffers from some form of entropy. Any method of storing data needs a way of verifying that the data is still good and repairing/replacing it as appropriate. That includes HDDs, the mechanical bits can seize up, or the spindle motor can fail. I've had a lot of drives over the years that had a spindle drive fail. Recovering data at that point, requires sending it to a specialty company and hoping they have the appropriate parts to recover the data and that the head didn't crash into something important in the mean time.
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@ExplainingComputers This is a good video, although a part 2 about how to monitor the integrity of the files would be helpful. Some of these options are not practical due to the issues of loading up the files for verification. DVDs in particular might last a super long time, but they don't store that much information and you physically have to load them up to see if they're still readable. HDD don't last as long, but you can have a pair of them and file verification on even the largest of them should only take a few hours without you even having to sit there babysitting it. Then you've got things like QuickPar that can both verify and recover some limited amount of data problems, provided the files are on a writeable disk. Personally, if I am going to use an optical disc for backup, I always burn a copy of dvdsig along with the file it generates with all the checksums. It makes it quite easy to verify that the disc is still readable and tell me which files are impacted if there are any.
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@javabeanz8549 Yes, also the data density kind of sucks. IMHO, pressed metal is probably a better choice if you're looking for data to potentially last for thousands of years. There's a reason why when they sent out that interstellar message decades back, it was on pressed metal.
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@sir.fender6034 The issue with that is that you need to load them into a computer from time to time to verify that they're still intact. Personally, I recommend using HDDs as they have much larger capacity and if it's archival data, you just need a couple so that no two are plugged in at the same time. Programs like DVDsig have existed for years and can automatically scan the entire drive to make sure that the files haven't changed and are still readable.
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@mrnmrn1 It's fine for a copy, however, you really need to have some other offsite location for another set of copies, preferably on a different medium. Some day, I'd love to get a tape drive, but for now, I use a pair of external HDDs that I swap on top of the online backups. It means, I generally have two copies that are not in my building at any given time. So, the amount of possible data loss is minimal.
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@tsuikagura Sometimes companies have bad batches. I remember Maxtor had a bad 8gb model back when they were still in business.
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@karlojoki6314 They all die eventually. Just about every drive I've ever owned has gone bad eventually. There are some models that are more reliable than others, but there is an element of luck in terms of how long they'll last.
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@AT-wl9yq Yes, and even those do fail. I have a DVD from a couple decades ago that won't read due to some sort of failure of the medium, I can see a significant portion of the disc is discolored. That being said, most of the discs I have of that age still read, I just recommend against people assuming they're going to last, because it just takes a little defect in the seal to allow moisture in to corrupt everything. I have a few more recent discs that also fail to read, although the cause is less clear.
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@justincase9471 I've looked into tape drives and none of the ones I've seen look to be meant for homeusers. Most of the ones I was finding were thousands of dollars for the drive, then you have to pay for the tapes you're using.
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