The best way is to just backup to multiple locations and actively manage it. RAID at the backup destination is nice because it means that if a disk fails, you don’t immediately lose everything there. But if you have multiple places where that data lives then it’s not the end of the world to just re-create the backup.
If you want to get into true archival solutions(way more expensive than setting up a RAID) then you’re looking at things like M-Disc and LTO tape
I went M-Disc. Need a special burner and disks cost me $30NZD each or about $18USD for 100GB.
They are write once (I fucked up two early on) but they should last 100+ years. I burnt about 1TB, and made two copies (one for offsite storage). It was not cheap.
You can set up a pretty robust backup system for pretty cheap if you already have the drives, and the knowledge to set it up yourself. I have two always on devices, an NAS that is my central location for important files, which syncs to a backup device with two hard drives that are synced at different intervals. If a drive fails, it gets replaced, and I haven’t lost the core of my backups, I might lose some incremental backups, but it’s more important to me that I have 3 copies available on different drives. 2 are in one location, the third in a separate location and my syncs are each an interation behind, so if there’s a huge screw up, it’ll take three sync cycles before the main copies are lost (not including the incremental backups I also keep).
This setup allows you to replace drives as they fail so you can constantly update with technologies and don’t need to worry about what’s the best medium.
What’s a good medium to back up to, assuming I don’t want to pay for a RAID setup?
The best way is to just backup to multiple locations and actively manage it. RAID at the backup destination is nice because it means that if a disk fails, you don’t immediately lose everything there. But if you have multiple places where that data lives then it’s not the end of the world to just re-create the backup.
If you want to get into true archival solutions(way more expensive than setting up a RAID) then you’re looking at things like M-Disc and LTO tape
I went M-Disc. Need a special burner and disks cost me $30NZD each or about $18USD for 100GB.
They are write once (I fucked up two early on) but they should last 100+ years. I burnt about 1TB, and made two copies (one for offsite storage). It was not cheap.
RAID is not a backup.
To be fair, RAID is not backup for itself but if they have their stuff on a computer and then sync it to a NAS RAID then that’s backup.
Yeah, the idea is that you should have another copy that is disconnected from the main one, if you have that then you do have a backup.
You can set up a pretty robust backup system for pretty cheap if you already have the drives, and the knowledge to set it up yourself. I have two always on devices, an NAS that is my central location for important files, which syncs to a backup device with two hard drives that are synced at different intervals. If a drive fails, it gets replaced, and I haven’t lost the core of my backups, I might lose some incremental backups, but it’s more important to me that I have 3 copies available on different drives. 2 are in one location, the third in a separate location and my syncs are each an interation behind, so if there’s a huge screw up, it’ll take three sync cycles before the main copies are lost (not including the incremental backups I also keep).
This setup allows you to replace drives as they fail so you can constantly update with technologies and don’t need to worry about what’s the best medium.