After losing 7tb of data, I think I've come up with a more reliable storage solution. What do you think?

[Ultranothing]

My Seagate Backup+ 8tb fell from about six inches and now is cooked. Again. Xfinity data caps are coming in 2022 so I'm setting up a little home-based storage thing that I hope is future-proof (and idiot-proof) and re-downloading all of my games, movies. music, etc., and I was hoping for some input/advice/etc.

 

I got this:

 

Samsung QVO 8tb SSD

 

And this:

 

 

Seagate EXOS 16TB HDD

 

And this:

 

Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB-C

 

And this: 

 

Anker Powerline II USB-C to USB-C cable

 

And just to be extra sure, I got this for the Elite Pro Dual enclosure:

 

Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX fan

Ya know? Just maybe I can keep my data for more than a year without some slight disturbance destroying everything. I'm going to use the SSD as the storage media and I was going to use Macrium Reflect to do bi-weekly (or weekly, or daily, whatever) backup images to the Seagate 16tb.

 

Is this a good idea? Bad? How would you set up this equipment for the most optimal performance and reliability? Did I go about this all wrong? What should I do differently? Scrap the whole idea? I know, I spent a grand and NOW I'm asking questions... 

 

 

[Kilrah]

Would not use macrium and make images, just mirror the files. That's what I do, on TWO backup drives, one being stored offsite and both being rotated regularly.

[OhioYJ]

13 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Would not use macrium and make images, just mirror the files. That's what I do, on TWO backup drives, one being stored offsite and both being rotated regularly.

 

Same here. I'm a bit more paranoid. So I keep two data drives in my PC. The important data is also mirrored across the other PCs in the house. Then I keep external drives at the house, in pairs (never know when a drive could fail, knock on a wood they don't anytime soon). Then I keep a pair of drives off site, at typically at the in laws or my moms. This pair of drives is rotated out typically at a minimum once a month.

 

It sounds like a lot but it started out as a single drive here and there, and is now a large collection of drives. Some of them only contain the most important stuff due to size, however that's ok, it's still a backup.

 

I don't use any third party software actually either, it's all just done with scripts. On Windows it's just a mixture of robocopy and xcopy, on Linux it's rsync. Typically run the script and walk away it backups and shutsdown.

 

 

[Kilrah]

I use FreeFileSync, don't want it automated since I only want the backup drive physically connected during the backup and want to see what's going to be done before committing, allows me to see if I deleted something by mistake and restore it instead of deleting from backup. 

[whispous]

You say it was a backup, but you also say that you lost data?

[Kilrah]

That's the product name...

[Guest willies leg]

FreeNAS with zfs raid-Z and zfs snapshots with zfs send/receive to another offsite is the way to go, bro.

ZFS gives you end to end checksums, you'll be protected against data rot too.