Solved A better way to use archive drives?

I’m currently trying to design the best trusted archiving method. I have so many wd red and blue drives. i once turned a windows 98 pc on that hadn’t ran in over ten years, the system seemed to have it’s data after ten years not plugged in. It sort of showed me that data doesn’t corrupt over years with no power, but it’s not a good enough test. I’m not loving deleting all my archives every half a year, And re copying the same data from a daily used performance drive. If the data on the performance drive gets a bad sector at any time, I’ll just be copying the corrupted files that were good on the archives Where I just deleted it, and losing data. Has anyone done a backup and left it for many years straight without plugging it in? And after years, all was not corrupted? Part of me has thought of recopying data using one of the aged archive drives as the source instead of the daily used performance drive. But if there are Any other ideas or experience for backup please let me know. And also if you’ve ever had a drive for many years unused, and all data was perfect once plugged back in. I also don’t want clouds any service, just want to use drives myself and want a well designed long term trusted way.
thanks

I believe I speak for most folks here when I say that generally copying individual files is NOT our means of protecting our data. While some sync their personal folders to the cloud, most here make regular images of their system using one or several of the backup softwares that are available. We don't keep our eggs in one basket. Most also keep multiple images with at least one being kept offsite. These images can be preserved on any external media, the cloud (which you do not want), or a networked drive,

If a user is not interested in backing up his entire system, some softwares allow for file and folder backup. Some do not.

Like you, I have many old spinners that are still viable. In the past I have made my own external drives by putting old drives in usb enclosures, which is a good solution for utilizing old unused hardware. However, because these old drives are so slow and more volatile, I have since migrated strictly to SSDs.

Great advice as usual from glasskuter

cash said:

And after years, all was not corrupted

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It is generally unlikely that sectors of a HDD will deteriorate when not in use. However HDD’s can in some cases be damaged by things like “stiction” where the read/write head gets stuck to the platter, or if the lubricant in the bearings dries out.
It’s a good idea to have a HDD enclosure or caddy that you can pop your HDD into it every couple of months and give it a spin. Anything worth keeping requires maintenance, maybe less SSD’s that glasskutter mentions.

@cash

Get a multi-bay HDD enclosure... (read the reviews, some are better than others)



It would be easier if you gave us a budget.

I see. Well if you want more detail, it’s all wd. they’re new red plus drives mostly. An older RE. So that’s reliable! Some older used ones As well. From black to blue. I seem to believe that drives were made better a few years ago. And some of my drives are refirbished with a 2015 or 2018 date. I find they were made better than 2021. So they’re internals being used as externals and keeping protected. I do have some externals though, like a 2018 my passport which is good. The newer passports are terrible! Quality dropped with external drives the past few years I found. It’s not so much the drive quality in question though, just the process. I do have a system image of the full computer on a wd purple. Renew that every once and a while. But I have organized folders I manually back up myself. Because you say a third party software to keep track for you, but I feel the data already copied is just sitting there with the software. What I’m doing is deleting are recopying every time, worying about the data corrupting if left for years not read or replaced. I’m not so sure it’s necessary for me to worry about that. If you think it’s necessary to keep the arm moving every now and then, sure I’ll do that. But the question lies in does the data have to be repaced, or can I count on it remaining intact, without being read or re written ever so often?
Cause it’s true, the software for bays or externals just leaves it most of the time unless you program it to re write often. By the way, the drives are all in those eva foam interior enclosure cases. I just take them out and put them on a dock to periodically re copy all the data, and add the new. So they're drives backing up only certain folders, not the whole system. The system image drive takes care of that. That’s why it’s an archiving situation of data. I just always wondered do I really need to re copy what’s there or will it last decades without corrupting, unlike on an SSD. I like “It is generally unlikely that sectors of a HDD will deteriorate when not in use”. That’s what I’m aiming for. The drives are in around 23-27 Celsius all the time with no measured humidity. One or two times they’ll be in frozen or hotter temperature. They also tend to reach 40 running for an hour or two the odd time.

cash said:

I just always wondered do I really need to re copy what’s there or will it last decades without corrupting,

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If a file copies without any corruption the first time you copy it, there is no benefit to re-copying that same file unless there are changes to the file contents. It should remain viable as long as the drive is viable. To add to that, every time you manually copy or re-copy a file there is always the human element involved.
From what I read I think you are wanting a 100% guarantee that a file you copy today will be readable 20 years from now. Personally I would never go out on a limb and give you that guarantee. It's hardware. Stuff happens. It's data. Stuff happens. It's windows. Stuff happens.

My wonder does lie in the hardware and data with regard to years down the road with no power. I’ve read so much online about having to recharge the magnetic data by running the discs in order not to lose the data being left with no power over years. Etc..
So I'm glad to see you say it should remain viable as long as the drive is. Because how could it not be viable if there is nothing being done. Unless there are some worries with magnetic charge and humidity etc. But I guess my wonder is, is just powering on the drive every two years, etc, down the line, enough to definitely keep all that data existing? So you’re nit reading it with playback, your just haveping the drive kond if read the file and the magnetic force recharges. this unassursnce is what lead to the whole recopying process. I read a lot about it corrupting due to not being read or used over years. Like 5 or 8 years just stored d
For example. I believe it’s fine 1 or 2 years but have usually loaded it within that time frame. But that knowledge and wonder made me overwrite it all the time. Every half a year. And I would rather not anymore. So I’m glad you say viable. It’d be great if someone already had that experience themselves, of leaving hundreds of videos or photos on a drive for 8 or ten years, not even plugging it in, and then seeing all the data was perfect. Kind of like running into an old computer and seeing all the data still seemingly intact.

cash said:

It’d be great if someone already had that experience themselves, of leaving hundreds of videos or photos on a drive for 8 or ten years, not even plugging it in, and then seeing all the data was perfect

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Yes more than once I have pulled an old spinner from a computer that has been sitting in a closet for years and recovered data from it. I've even been able to read data from old IDE spinners I salvaged years ago and stored in my garage without erasing them. (But I've also run across some I couldn't. Maybe they weren't viable when I pulled them. Maybe they went bad over time. I can't say.) But such examples do not give you the 100% assurance you're asking for.

I'll be honest with you here and you may not want to hear it. The way I read that you are maintaining your data makes absolutely no sense to me. Chances are you could reduce a lot of the data you are trying to preserve across these old drives(such as removing duplicates or files that really hold no importance any longer) What does make sense to me is rather than have data spread over multiple old drives, is to buy a SSD (or 2) larger enough to consolidate data in one place so that data can not only be easily managed but imaged, or, if you persist in wanting to still manually copy files as well, the drive could be cloned which would then make copying so much easier to manage. There's also software like Free File Sync that can keep data synced between local folders as a means of archival.

it’s not a space issue. I purposely buy multiple drives and just keep them cloned as a backup for when drives eventually die or become defective. As simple as selecting three folders, and dragging them to another drive. That’s it. I trust manually doing it every half a year or so just to prevent Running so many hours on these drives. The importance is their reliability to be left inactive and retain the data for years to come. If I suddenly stopped getting data to backup and left them fir literally years not plugged in. I like what you said about how you were able to pull data from those old spinners. Exactly what I’m looking for. I think the garage is a good test because you’ve got humidity and temperature change. Not extreme cold in Texas though. But the heat is a good test factor

The importance is their reliability to be left inactive and retain the data for years to come.

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Chris Barnatt did a video on it on his explaining computers youtube.