Comment by optionalsquid
5 days ago
It wouldn't completely prevent data-loss, but most "normal" people would be a lot better off if they simply copied their important files to an external HDD or flash drive on a regular basis
5 days ago
It wouldn't completely prevent data-loss, but most "normal" people would be a lot better off if they simply copied their important files to an external HDD or flash drive on a regular basis
Flash drives are less than ideal for backups. I think when they are stored cold i.e. unpowered, flash memory only retains data for a couple of years. Spinning hard drives are way more reliable for the use case.
That's true. But if they are stored unpowered for a couple of years, then you clearly aren't doing regular backups. OTOH, it's doesn't seem unlikely that the average person would leave a disk gathering dust, so advising people to use a regular HDD is probably the best approach
> if they are stored unpowered for a couple of years, then you clearly aren't doing regular backups
I am doing regular backups yet I have a few backup disks unpowered for years. They are older, progressively smaller backup HDDs I keep for extra redundancy.
Every 2-4 years I am getting a larger backup drive, and clone my previous backup drive to the new one. This way when the backup drive fails (happened around 2013 because I was unfortunate to get notoriously unreliable 3TB Seagate), I don’t lose much data if at all because most of the new stuff is still on the computers, and the old stuff is left on these older backup drives.
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This is it, the odds of both main drive and external failing at the same time are low enough for most people. As long as youre regularly backing up and therefore catching if the external has failed.
As long as it is not automatic, this probably is the only working solution. Pair of USB disks that are rotated and manually copied into. Note to self: mark in my callendar backup days.