Definitely not the right place for this, but I’m yet to find the right place. I need an SSD/HDD that can store about 10 years worth of family photo and video. I was looking at that Samsung rugged SSD, but it’s a little above my price range right now. I’e like to have at least a terabyte for future photos so I don’t have to worry about this again for a while. Any reliable options?
handy site for finding the lowest price per TB HDD/SSD
On top of any local thing you do, you should strongly consider some type of cloud backup. (BackBlaze has a good price.) Even if you have 2 redundant drives at home that you backup to, what happens in the event of a fire while you are out? Those drives are now equally roasted. If you care enough and can take the cost, you should always try to have a backup thats at a separate location from your home/primary storage.
Actually, the main reason I’m doing this is so we can switch away from our Verizon plan, which includes cloud storage. All the photos are there now, but Verizon has been fucking us over for like 10 years and I’m sick of paying for a bunch of bundle bullshit I don’t use.
Noted, though cloud storage and cloud backup aren’t the same. BackBlaze is $70/yr for unlimited backup. Regardless, the main point was just to make sure you’re aware. Many people try to use an external drive as backup for data they really care about without realizing how vulnerable that setup can actually be. As long as you know, then anything after that is your call.
It depends a lot on how much space you’re using, how much you need, and the conditions that you’re storing the drive in.
10 years doesn’t really say how many photos there are. It could just as readily be a very small number of photos, or a very big number of photos.
If it’s just going to be sitting in a box on the shelf, an HDD could still work reasonably well, but if it’s going to be in a bag/bumped around, you might want the tougher SSD. The HDD still has the best price per TB value (may differ depending on your country/local market), but for 1TB, the difference is negligible (you’d be looking at maybe $10 - 20 total difference).
The best place to store it is more than one place. No product can replace this essential procedure.
@selfhosted may be a good place to ask. Can run your own “cloud” photo backup on a computer so photos taken on phones can automatically be saved. Would also recommend a second drive at friend/family house so you can back-up off-site to follow the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies, 2 different types of storage, 1 offsite) for backups. For even better redundancy for drive failures you could run a NAS running multiple drives in RAID. Basically, RAID combines multiple physical drives into a single “logical” drive with different speed, capacity, and redundancy capability and the NAS allows you to access that over your local network or internet.
Samsung 2tb external drives can be had for 80-120$ on amazon. Their X6 and X8 models are nice. The price difference is the X8 is a metal case and comes with a USB-C to USB adapter.
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Further comment: The best storage I’ve ever used is Western Digital Red or Blue hard drives installed in external cases. I’ve had 8tb in cold storage for years and they boot no problem.
Have a look at an nvme ssd and an enclosure for it. I’m using a icy box one for mine. This way you can get 2tb storage for about 130€. There are a ton of options regarding enclosures. If your budget allows you should get two for additional backup security.
Seconding NVME with an enclosure. These don’t take up a lot of physical space and they’re fast. I just got a 1TB Samsung that was a return from Amazon for $38. Worked perfectly. In the US the 2TBs can be had for around $120.
You’re going to need to figure out what your storage needs are before you can choose a drive - 10 year’s worth isn’t very quantifiable in data storage terms. Find out the size in gigabytes of your image directory(ies) and then go for half again to double the storage capacity. Storage is cheap and you can never have too much!
Just be careful not to leave them unplugged for too long. An SSD can forget data if it’s not powered up for a very long time.
