Hey folks, being the family IT man I’ve held onto all of my families photos/videos over the last 20 years
I’ve been pretty careless with the backups and I know if I don’t do anything it’s only a matter of time before I lose them
Although I’ve never used them, tape drives seem to be the best so I thought I’d ask here if anyone uses them for their homelab?
It might be overkill for a few GB of photos but I’d also use the tape drives for data hoarding purposes so it’s a win win in my book
Tapes can have long term issues in storage, as the tape reel winds will eventually start to bleed over magnetic signals from one wind to the next.
In analog world, they call it tape hiss. In digital world, with good error correction, it can last a long time, but is still ultimately prone to data corruption, eventually…
I recommend a video surveillance rated multi terabyte hard drive, they’re designed to run 24/7. I have two 4TB Seagate Skyhawks.
LTO tape is good for 30 years when properly stored. You should be transferring the data to a newer format much sooner than that anyways. LTO drives are only backwards compatible for 1 or 2 versions, so you probably won’t be able to find a working drive that can read your tape 30 years later.