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Best way to backup files (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 5 months ago by emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I have about 500GB of data (photos, documents, videos etc.) that I have accumulated over the years. Currently, I keep them on my computer and rsync all additions / changes once a month or so to an external hard drive. Do I need to be worried about data loss (sectors going bad, bit rot, bit flip, whatever it is called)?

To clarify,

None of this is commercially important; I just don't want to get into a situation where I look up an old family photo or video twenty years down the line and it has got corrupted.
Both my computer and the external HD are HDDs. They are fairly cheap here (and very cheap if second hand). Buying SSDs or dedicated hardware would be expensive.

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[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 months ago

It's always a good idea to have an off-site backup (e.g. in case of fires, robbery, natural disasters, etc). If you prefer to manage them yourself, an option is to find someone else who also needs an off-site backup and exchange disk space. You do your off-site on their machine, and they do theirs on yours. With external HDDs, you can just have someone else hold on to it for you at a different location. You can come up with fancier schemes to reduce the chances of data loss or to make the process simpler if you care to do so.