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Are memory cards a reliable medium for mid to long time media storage? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 week ago by qyron@sopuli.xyz to c/datahoarder@lemmy.ml

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I apologize if this isn't the correct place to ask this. If not, just point me to the right place, please.

As per the title, I am looking into backing up files - pictures, movies, music, some documents - locally but with little to mo need of having the backup medium hot. I already have a few HDDs lying around but it reaches a point where is becomes bulky and takes up considerable space.

I've been thinking of memory cards because they are reasonably affordable and can be stored away easily. But how reliable are those?

I intend to make/save several backup copies.

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[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

How much data? Can you keep some hard drives spinning? What is your budget? How will you do off site copies?

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

At present, I'd risk about 1TB, with the added "risk" of facing a sharp growth during this year. Core files are music, photos, some older films and series that are already hard to find.

I actively burned copies to disks some time back but a succession of events led me to just having multiple copies across several HDDs that I occasionally power up to check. I can afford to spend some cash on HDDs. On paper, getting some MDisks seems more than reasonable but my national market is cutting back hard on DVD/BR disks and even reader/burners. It is reaching a point where it feels it is already being viewed as a "professional" medium. MDisk burners are even harder to source.

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

I looked up MDiscs and they are pretty stupidly expensive but might be a reasonable bet. You might want to use something like PAR to make a backup, that gives you some redundancy without making extra copies.

From experience I can say leaving HDD's powered down for long periods is asking for trouble. The lubricants in them get sticky and then the drives won't spin up. Ideally you want to keep your HDD's spinning all or most of the time.

I guess you could check ebay for an older generation LTO tape drive. LTO 5 isn't a total relic yet, and it stores 1.5TB on a tape, which would give you a bit of headroom above your 1TB dataset. Tape and optical disc are about the only backup media with any durability.

If your media files are of public interest and not in copyright, you could upload them to archive.org which is free, and other people could access them too.