Backblaze states 50% of their drives after 5 years. That's 5 years of 24/7 365 day operation for a consumer drive operating with a ton of other drives all spinning together and vibrating. A hard drive used at home has a better chance of surviving longer but you should still take the 5 yr mark to heart. If you are just copying data to a hard drive and then storing it somewhere make sure you power it on occasionally, also perform a full scan of it every quarter or so and also keep it in a climate controlled environment.

I'm a bit overkill. Current backups for my home server:

Home server: 11 10TB Seagate Ironwolf drives RAIDZ3 FreeNAS 11.0

Offiste Rotation
1 Qnap TVS-670 (6bay 10tb drives)
1 Qnap TVS-670 (6bay 10tb drives)
1 Synology (5bay 10tb drives)

I've gone from 5.25"/3.5" floppies->CD->DVD->USB1/Firewire ExtHD->USB2 ExtHD->RAID1 Ext HD->2Bay NAS'S->6 Bay NAS's.

I'm constantly organizing my data, I don't want to deal with tape and I'm a digital packrat. I've had a ton of hard drives and failure does not happen very often and is nothing to worry about as long as you're not storing your data on one drive.

If you're going to backup don't half ass it (RAID is not a backup, 1 copy is not a backup, If you don't test your restores then you don't have a backup, etc etc)....but don't go crazy (see above).

NAND (flash) memory is ideal for write once, read many.

So yes, just keep it away from different radiation types (cosmic, sun, etc)

As i mentioned, it appears that good flash drives (including SD cards) should keep data for years to come, even maybe decade(s)... they are less suitable for usage where you constantly write stuff to them. That's the gist I got by reading the articles about flash media durability.

So if your meaning is mainly to copy some stuff to a new flash drives once and then put it to cupboard for years, apparently flash drives are durable in that. But if your meaning is to update and rewrite those files on those flash drives very often, then the flash drive may wear down even quite fast.

It is just that flash media is relatively costly. A small sized 2.5" 2 terabyte external USB HDD costs something like $70, while a 2 TB USB flash drive costs close to $1500.

People are usually talking about HDDs which are in active daily use (maybe having also heat problems if they are internal HDDs), and/or when constantly moving them around (where they might be dropped to floor accidentally etc.). They are not specifically talking about writing your files to a HDD and then putting it into storage, that's a different question. No HDDs will not last forever in storage either (it is magnetic media, and it parts will also get worse even without use), but it should be relatively safe. Definitely it is the most cost-effective and easy solution, you can put lots of stuff to them, they are quite fast, and you can easily modify files on them when needed.

Why do you insist on one solution? Why can't you use different tools for different purposes? Say, for long time storage (and to be able to easily update the files when needed), put your GOG games and other personal files you want to keep, to an external USB HDD, and put that to a safe place e.g. your cupboard. Maybe also run rhash or dvdsig scan for them so that you can easily check at any time that the files are still ok on it, nothing has corrupted.

For active use, and as a secondary backup, you can also keep your GOG game installers on e.g. an USB flash drive. Not run the games from there, but to install them from there. Then you already have two local backups of your GOG game installers, and the USB flash drive can be handled more carelessly because it doesn't care if you drop it on the floor accidentally etc.

If any data ever gets corrupted on that flash drive or it stops failing due to having written too many times on it, fine, buy a new (bigger?) flash drive and copy your GOG games back to it from that HDD you have in the storege (in case you don't want to just redownload them from GOG).

So HDD for long time storage, and flash drive for active use. Ps. Do you play games on a laptop, or is it a desktop in one place? I was of course thinking my own situation where I have a (gaming) laptop which I might take with me to other places, so a portable media where my GOG games are is a nice thing to have.

I think the main point with flash drives are, are you constantly going to write to them? Reading stuff from them shouldn't really wear them down much, so you could keep your GOG game installers there, and install them from there. That is reading. Installing the games themselves to flash drive and running them from there... yeah that could cause some constant rewrites, at least if save games are located also on that flash drive.

Not really. They physically wear down, both from use, but also the connectors oxidizing etc. If you take some very old 8bit Nintendo cartridge which had been used quite a lot and try to play it now, it might easily fail. Don't you remember all the tips how to try get used NES cartridges working, by blowing air (with your mouth) to the connectors before inserting the cartridge, etc.?

And the main point also is that those old console games are tied to that one cartridge. When that cartridge finally breaks down (which it eventually will), you lose the game. You don't have the same problem with GOG games: if you feel your aging storage media (be it a flash drive, HDD or whatever, doesn't matter) might be starting to fail, you can easily copy all your games to a new fresh media which will last another decade.

I feel you just need to change your way of thinking. Concentrate less on the media itself, it isn't that important because you can copy your GOG files easily around, even having them on several places. The files are what matters, and some way for you to check time to time that they are still ok (rhash, dvdsig etc.).

Yeah those were talking about a different thing, how long hard drives last under daily constant use. If you write something to an external HDD and put it into your cupboard for storage, that is not constant use.

I guess unconnected HDDs eventually fail too and it might even be the data itself being on a magnetic media) might start getting corrupted over time if it is not completely refreshed (rewritten) every now and then, but it is still a different thing.

I recall once taking a very old PATA hard drive (it was at least 15 years old, could be even 20) which I found in my cupboard. I connected it to my PC with a PATA => USB connector, and it worked fine. Now, I can't be 100% sure all the data on it was still ok (no way to check them all fully), but those files that I could check, were fine. For instance, I had lots of zip or arj compressed files on it, and they all still uncompressed fine.

Naturally, I copied all the files worth saving from that PATA hard drive to my newer hard drives. That's the main point, easily being able to move your DRM-free files to newer media.

Yes, saving to cloud is one option if you have a speedy internet, but it is not like Crashplan will be around forever either. At some point they will most probably also close their business, at which point you need to copy everything from them back to your PC (and possibly to some other online service), unless you already have local copies too.

Also it depends on the size of your archive and your internet speed. If I were to copy e.g. my GOG games to such service... well, I have well over 2 terabytes of GOG games already, and the upload speed of my internet connection is only something like 1.5 Mbits/s (download speed is 10Mbit/s). I guess it would take a damn sweet time for me to upload 2 terabytes of data to such online service.

I've already once been in a situation where our family (meaning also my siblings) kept lots of our personal photos and videos on certain online service (community). At one point we just received an email from them that they are closing their operations, so we needed to hurry to download all our stuff from their servers back to us, if we were not sure if we had local copies (and it was stuff we wanted to keep: yeah not necessarily all photos and videos you have are worth saving, up to you to decide. Some don't keep any, they don't mind that their parents didn't preserve videos from their childhood etc.).

If you want a truly long term storage (ie more long term than the external HDD solution everyone has already mentioned), get tape drives and a tape drive writer. The initial setup cost is large (or larger than getting an USB drive), but tapes last longer and they also store more

Mmm, looked at tape solutions myself. With HDD prices coming down so much (SSD's and all that), the cost of tapes is either the same, or more than the equivalent HDD. On top of that HDDS are easier to access, have a hot swap bay and away you go. Storage could also be a factor there, biggest tape I found was 100gb, so 10tb would be quite a few of these. Then there is the constant updating and such like. With two raids I use FreeFileSync to mirror changes across (in fact I do the same with the standalone USB HDDs as well).
Not saying it isn't an option though, maybe post some amazon links to what you use so I can compare?

HDD setups have always been cheaper than tape solutions, not sure why you thought it was the other way around.

LTO-7 is the latest specification. Cost of tape is $102, different companies have varying prices. Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-LTO-Ultrium-7-Data-Cartridge/dp/B018J4H8EO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497605668&sr=8-1&keywords=lto+7

You can read about it in wiki, specifically the section on Generations. LTO-7, released Dec 2015, Native/raw data capacity is 6 TB and offers 2.5:1 compression. If you use the compression, your capacity becomes 15 TB on a single tape. Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open

Drives are costly and I did not do an extensive search. There *should* be slightly cheaper options that this one. This specific one costs $3,000 https://www.amazon.com/StoreEver-LTO-7-Ultrium-External-BB874A/dp/B019DMRFSA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1497605668&sr=8-4&keywords=lto+7

Yes, so that is business grade backup. The size is good, but the tape drive costs the same as my gaming machine did, whereas my terramaster cost £100-£150 + whatever HDDs I put in, so I could effectively get 3 or 4 full raid systems for the cost of the drive, heck I could probably build a couple of servers for that. The cheaper end of the tape market are several gb per tape, so too small. Would be nice though, just need to win the lottery :o)

Is there some hard evidence of tapes preserving your data longer than a (good quality) hard drive? For argument's sake, let's assume they are both used similarly, ie. you write your data to them once, and them put them into your cupboard for years which is relatively safe from direct sunlight, high temperatures and humidity. Will the data on the hard drive start getting corrupted on its own earlier, or will the mechanism in the hard drive get broken (without use) earlier than the tape itself, or the tape drive?

I am asking because I don't know. I presume both are suspectible to e.g. strong magnetic fields because both are magnetic media, but I would have thought the data inside the hard drive closure it somewhat more safe from that than the tape.

The last time I've used or even seen backup tape media was probably in the late 90s. I didn't even realize they are still actively used; or are they? Does GOG make tape backups of all the games and files they have, from which they restore them in case their online hard drives would break up? (OK not GOG itself, but the CDN service provider which hosts GOG's files that we users download.)

Then there's what the earlier writer pointed out, hard drives are simply much easier to use if you need to update some of the files or write new stuff there too, have a higher storage capacity etc. I'm genuinely surprised backup tape drives would still be a thing, seems like a relic to me.

Backup tapes are very much a thing and a far cry from being a relic. As I posted earlier, the latest standard was released in Dec 2015 with several more iterations in the pipeline.

While I would love to dig up some articles for you, I am posting from work and I was only posting as a quick reply sort of thing. I said that tapes last longer because they are primarily used in Businesses and Data centers which produce large amounts of data and need to store them for long periods of time (10+ years). Tapes fulfill both purposes (providing a large capacity) and are more robust for long term storage than HDD's. I know for a fact that Data Centers typically hold daily/monthly backups on HDD's, after which they get put on a tape and get file somewhere for long term storage (like they will hold end of Feb monthly backup till Mar end on the HDD, then "filed" to tape)

So yes, you can definitely build a really good NAS with 10tb+ storage with HDD's and that will give you as an individual customer far more usability than a tape drive for the same price. But if you only cared for storing large volumes of data for long periods, you cannot beat tapes. I'm mostly talking about back it up on tape put it in a cupboard and forget about it kind of storage, not something you would be reading and writing to on a constant basis.

I'm learning so much. I am super grateful to all of you for pitching in and helping me gain an understanding. :)

I said "generally" meaning yeah, flash drives have some use, and I may use it for small files, but HDDs are the way to go for cost-effectiveness and durability.

Your suggestion is sound. I am actually going to leave those files I transferred on the USB stick. I may download some more, but once I run out of space, it's out. I have a feeling the rest of my library, which are the newer, bigger games, will not fit on that 32 GB flash drive. I could buy a bigger flash drive that suits my needs, but the bigger it gets, the more sense it makes to keep some of my small games on there and another copy of the rest of my library on HDDs. So I'd have my flash drive for one backup of my smaller games, and, eventually, two HDDs for backing up my entire library + photos, videos, etc.

Also, I do have a laptop. "Portable" is a loose definition for it, because it only runs when the charger is plugged in. I know I can replace the battery, but at this point it makes far more sense to get a new computer, given that it's a decade old.


As far as tapes go, thanks for the recommendation! I may look into that someday, but for now my files may fluctuate too much to justify using it. HDDs will work for now, as I will most likely take a picture or get a new game at least once every quarter.


Now I am researching about how the files themselves will fare. I know if I write them and leave them in the cupboard, they should be pretty safe. The only issue I'm looking into is whether rewriting the same file repeatedly can rot the file. Sort of like editing a JPEG picture over and over will degrade its quality with time. Again, I'm undereducated about this, so apologies if this sounds overkill or obvious.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/do-digital-files-degrade-with-time.435862/

I use multiple HDD's myself but I need something more durable, since I use my externals a lot for storage (for my movies, tv shows, game installers what have you).

I have a 1TB HD that holds (roughly 3/4's) of my installed steam library. That HD is full from just that. Then I have a 2TB hdd out of which about 300-400gigs is GoG I think, rest is movies, shows etc. I think I only have 200 gigs free on that drive. Luckily I have a 1TB SSD internal for OS and some games that I want speedy loading times + a 4TB internal HDD for "everything else" thing, but I need like a 4Tb external so I can download ans store the rest of my GoG installers.


God forbid if one of my drives fails....

I have a little under half of the available games on GOG and my full offline installers backup takes around 1.6TB, so I wouldn't really say 1TB is enough in all cases. It depends on your GOG footprint.

How many games is that?

FTFY. It's just a matter of time with these things :). My advice is to be ready, keep important stuff in two separate places, you know the drill...

865, not counting DLCs of course. Mostly oldies, but some newer ones as well I guess. Mind you I'm backing up Windows AND Linux installers when available.