Send CathInfo's owner Matthew a gift from his Amazon wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/25M2B8RERL1UO

Author Topic: Why you shouldn't rely on cloud service and have local backups  (Read 6242 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Mark 79

  • Supporter
Re: Why you shouldn't rely on cloud service and have local backups
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2025, 09:36:57 PM »
So far nobody has mentioned keeping an off-site back-up.

As far as I know the highest capacity BDXL Quad-Layer disks are only capable of 128GB storage.

As a lifetime hobbyist photographer and having a decent music collection, 128GB doesn't come close to meeting my needs.

I just added a 4TB external SSD dedicated only to photographs because Lightroom was consuming my other external drives at a rapid pace (and I am only 2 months into learning Lightroom).

Offline Matthew

  • Mod
Re: Why you shouldn't rely on cloud service and have local backups
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2025, 10:38:16 PM »
Yes, hard drives are part of my on-site storage solution. I have a home fileserver,  using traditional hard drives (magnetic spinning platter, the slow kind) in a RAID configuration.
That is plenty fast for storing files. But here's the thing: when SSD fails, it fails HARD. As in, everything on the whole chip is toast. There is no "hard drive recovery service" for SSD hard drives. It's a HUGE downside of these super fast hard drives.

Contrast that with the traditional magnetic hard drives. About 6 years ago I had an external 1 TB hard drive (magnetic platter of course) and it dropped from a high shelf. Yes, it was damaged. But I only lost a number of files on it. The majority of the files on it were able to be recovered! That would never have happened with an SSD hard drive.

Nevertheless, overall, in the end, I can't live without SSD drives now in my PCs and laptops. The hard drive has been the bottleneck in computer speed for some time. SSDs were a much needed improvement.
Speaking of which, in the interests of frugality, I'd recommend everyone to upgrade their PC (or laptop) to SSD hard drive, and watch how much faster it will be. It will feel like a new machine.

And make sure your machine has AT LEAST 8 GB RAM -- preferably 16 GB. That's another huge bottleneck. I still see cheap laptops with 4 GB RAM and I groan. That is NOT enough for Windows, or even Linux which is much gentler on computer hardware requirements.

We did this with an old (6 year old) laptop, and it made the thing many times faster -- I mean NOTICEABLY faster. Cost us around $55 for the upgrade. An extremely wise move.

Optical storage (BD-R) is good for long-term backups. Optical disks are flood proof, whereas most magnetic hard drives are NOT. 


Offline Ladislaus

  • Supporter
Re: Why you shouldn't rely on cloud service and have local backups
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2025, 10:49:11 PM »
So far nobody has mentioned keeping an off-site back-up.

You are right, and it did cross my mind but just didn't end up mentioning it.  If you have some very important things, it's likely good to have an offsite backup, and there's where the cloud might come in, but it might be good to have a physical offsite backup as well, so perhaps save your stuff out to a BD-R, and then make another copy of it (verifying both), and take one somewhere else, in case, say, your home burns down or robbed, etc.

Offline Mark 79

  • Supporter
Re: Why you shouldn't rely on cloud service and have local backups
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2025, 11:25:52 PM »
Yes, hard drives are part of my on-site storage solution. I have a home fileserver,  using traditional hard drives (magnetic spinning platter, the slow kind) in a RAID configuration.
That is plenty fast for storing files. But here's the thing: when SSD fails, it fails HARD. As in, everything on the whole chip is toast. There is no "hard drive recovery service" for SSD hard drives. It's a HUGE downside of these super fast hard drives.…
I have mentioned before that I had 3 hard disk failures within 1 week. Luckily I had a 4th hard disk drive and recovered, losing only about 1 week of (unessential) data. Lesson learned, I made a stack of DVD back-ups.… but my storage needs have expanded (photos and music) far beyond 128GB. After installing my newest 4TB SSD, I backed up using a hard disk. Even using a new fast machine it took a full day to do that backup.

This discussion prompted me to consider getting a current Blueray read/write peripheral not only for back up, but also to play foreign language movies with simultaneous dual language (e.g., English/Asian) subtitles to aid my learning. English only subtitles are of little learning assistance because the native language is often spoken quickly, softly, and/or mumbling, so I often need to read what is being said. Also, the foreign vids commonly use slang and the equivalent English slang doesn't help me learn the native slang.  An example: in one amusing exchange, the English translation, "skinny," was literally "dried shrimp" in the native language.

To adjust for regional video protocols, obtain .srt files for multi-language subtitles, display the subtitles simultaneously, and save files offline… it's all possible with multiple pieces of different software, but a bit of a pain.

I think I have found a work-around for streaming to display the simultaneous subtitles… maybe.

Offline St Giles

  • Supporter
Re: Why you shouldn't rely on cloud service and have local backups
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2025, 12:18:43 AM »
Backup on a variety of storage media, each properly secured against what causes it's degradation (EMP, moisture, heat, cold, magnetic fields, radiation,ect), and better yet, store them with a new/tested means of retrieving that data, so obsolescence or scarcity isn't a problem down the road. It's hard to beat paper if tech fails, except if you had a micro laser engraver that could print information on scrolls of tough corrosion resistant metal.