Good long-term backup storage solution?

[Varpin]

Hello everyone,

I'm in need of some backup storage, something where I could just copy my data and then forget it, leave it and rarely use it. 2 TB to 3 TB should be enough (for now), but bigger capacity would be better for future proofing (4-6 TB). Currently I have 1 TB Samsung T5 SSD what I currently use for backups, but I have other use cases for it after I get something else for backing up files.

Any suggestions? I've read that SSDs lose data over time if not used regularly, and I'm not going to use it regularly, 

How about external USB hard drives? Would those be good option? Or should I get two 3,5" WD Black or Blue drives and put them in an USB HDD case? 

I've also thought about NAS, but that would be the most expensive option and I couldn't just forget about it and leave it.

 

[crakddx]

Seagate Barracuda 4tb. have heard some issues wwith it tho.

[markwoll]

Over the years I have just had external hard drives that I write backups to with a non compressed, non propitiatory format.

I try to use an external enclosure with a generic interface, USB usually. Speed is secondary to security.

My goal is to be able to access the data later without worrying about how to get to the data.

Even writing an ISO of the the source disk would be ok, as long as the format of the disk is standard, no special drivers, raid, bitlocker, compression, etc.

The important factor is being able to get to the treasured files without having to build a special box, install special software to access the backup catalog, etc.

Does it mean that I have a bunch of hard drives stored around? Yep.

Do I go through them when I am bored and test them and potentially consolidate to newer devices? Yep.

 

I still us a NAS with fairly exotic  ( Raid 6, BTRFS, or ZFS ) for online bulk storage and availability of archival stuff.

I'm not a super packrat, so it's just a 20-25 terabytes .

NAS is not a backup.