Sorry for the noob question. TL DR is the title + how long will it take for the data to started getting corrupted?

Some back story: i’m “the media guy” for my workplace and I tend to keep all the RAW photos, videos, all the rest of it, on my own drives. Now that I’m moving to another branch office, I might not need the data to be accessed as frequently, so I’m planning to only put them in a 2 TB ext 2.5’ HDD that has been serving as the on site backup for those files in the first place for about 2 years, and may not touch it for a long time. The main copies are in an equally large ext SSD, which I intend to delete after I have completely moved office. I do have an off site backup.

  • WikiBox@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    It is likely that the files will be fine for years. But they may become corrupt tomorrow.

    You need multiple copies, on different types of media. And check/migrate regularly.

  • dr100@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Will rot away on anything, use or no use, at least in this universe. It’s called entropy. Have multiple copies, check them periodically and refresh as they die.

  • acidblue811@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Unless the hdd is stored in a high moisture environment, your data should be safe enough. Worst case, the spindle of the motor gets stuck but even there are ways to get the data pulled

  • Linflexible@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    To the best of my knowledge and reading many insightful posts here, magnetic HDD have a higher chance preserving data if stored in good conditions (no water or humidity, far from magnetic fields, …). SSDs as I was told need to be powered in order to preserve data begging the question about the usefulness of external SSDs.