I have backups on a backup hard drive and also synced to B2, but I am thinking about backing up to some format to put in the cupboard.
The issue I see is that if I don’t have a catastrophic failure and instead just accidentally delete some files one day while organising and don’t realise, at some point the oldest backup state is removed and the files are gone.
The other thing is if I get hit by a bus and no one can work out how to decrypt a backup or whatever.
So I’m thinking of a plain old unencrypted copy of photos etc that anyone could find and use. Bonus points if I can just do a new CD or whatever each year with additions.
I have about 700GB of photos and videos which is the main content I’m concerned about. Do people use DVDs for this or is there something bigger? I am adding 60GB or more each year, would be nice to do one annual addition or something like that.
exFAT is a newer and viable alternative to FAT32, with better size limits and some pretty good cross-platform capabilities. That said, if your primary access is through Windows, NTFS may have some better features and is at least read-only on other platforms.
I don’t use Windows, I’m just thinking of someone needing to be able to pick up and use a drive, and for most people it’s going to be Windows.
Maybe I just need to leave instructions that specify it needs to be my laptop they use to get the photos off.