Carve it in crystal, then seal it in a vacuum container. Repeat this as many times as you want. Then bury some of them in holes around the world like the Mariana Trench and send the rest to space, one for each planet at the minimum.

No it's not, unless one wants a crappy option. The data on discs decays over time and eventually the disc will not have any data on it.

If the BD is stored in a humid and warm environment, it can suffer oxidation faster than expected. If stored in a dry room and rather not so warm, i guess it can outlast many HDDs and SSDs. Still, HDD are pretty safe as long as there are at least 3 backups and in not more than 10, rather 5 years... every HDD should be replaced by a new one.

The climate is not playing a role for a HDD as it is usually sealed, unlike BDs. However, the seal may not last forever... so to be safe every 5 year it should be switched out. Especially the big HDDs (above 10 TB) should be switched out on time because they are all sealed with Helium and Helium over time simply may fade... which is basically the dead of the HDD that is optimized for a Helium environment. So air-filled HDDs are more secure but it is impossible to get huge capacity this way. I got 2x 10 TB air filled HDDs, those are pretty hot running but they can surely last very long. However, 20 TB is already the minimum backup size i currently need, and i already need 2x the biggest air filled one for one single backup. Helium filled ones are currently big enough to catch the entire image on a single HDD.

It will not last forever still, i am glad for even bigger ones, 30-40 TB... which will allow for a even better backup format (different shapes of data for higher redundancy). Currently i do not use any additional shape (just Setup and Installs) because it will simply blast the realistic size together with my moneybag.

Of course one single backup. but i need 2, 3 or if i am truly rich even 4 backups.

For those with Gabe Newells pocket... they can as well buy a datacenter-SDD with 100 TB at a price of 40 000 US coins, but only god may know how many years those data will last. In my mind, the most safe modern SSD... is my OS drive in SLC mode, a Kingstone Fury Renegade, not necessarily Gabe Newells server-SSD. But by using SLC... the data is way lower... those SSDs gets extremely pricy per TB. This luxury is reserved for my OS only.

Fades from UV radiation or just fades?

I know i have an old CD i burned and checked 10+ years after even when i used it heavily and it still worked.

But if Blueray isn't a good option, what burning option would there be? Mind you everything eventually breaks and fails, so it's more a matter of backing up data before that happens, and likely having some error correction/rebuilding.

Mhmm... Makes me think putting them in an appropriate binder, then dousing the binder in rice to act as moisture absorbtion. (or reuse the silicon gel packets?).


I was thinking burned media would be a last resort you'd go to in the event a major crash, which like i've had i had 50 DVD's and they... yeah still worked, when i burned them in 2009 (or earlier).

Though Preferably backup data should be stuff you can't replace. But when you start becoming a digital packrat, well a lot of data may not be replaceable, as sites go down and stuff gets removed all the time.

GoG is basically a cloud backup and vendor at the same time.

Not so important how to back it up. as long as several redundant backups at different places and protected from fire (so use some fire-safe, with a fire guard certificate).

As long as you do not vacuum (using a seal) those CDs, rice or what else will not help because the room as a source of moisture is simply to big. You have to handle the entire room or use some sealed package with a moisture binder inside.

Of course, inside a PC case, humidity is no issue at all, unless rarely or never used. As long as the machine is running, it will dry out everything inside and protecting it from dust is the only concern. Although a case usually got capable filters but they need to be cleaned from time to time or even replaced at some point, else they will over time lose their filtering-power.

Yes, there are way to many people never cleaning it and at some point they wonder why their machine is starting to steam or even create weird failures.

@OP - Yep, the key being multiple drives, stored in different locations, and best if varying brands of drive. I do all that and some of my hard drives are the small portable type while others are the larger external powered type.

You can use a NAS, but I recommend not too, as that is more costly and all your eggs are in one basket (i.e. location). A good option if you have plenty of money and are a big business, but not really otherwise.

You can always make a disc copy to, to cover all your bases. But burnt discs are unreliable and slow. And I certainly wouldn't rely on an SSD. HDDs are much better, though even they can fail without warning ... so mandatory if you care about your data, to backup to multiple HDDs like I said above..

The more redundancy, the better. The limit would be how much you can afford. And ideally, don't have your back ups in the same physical location, including "cloud" servers, as they're just someone else's computers. You never know when a natural disaster, a change in laws, a robber, and so on and so forth, could put your collection in jeopardy.

You can rely on them as long as they're regularly powered (reliability issues aside, but that's why it's good to have multiple copies anyway). Otherwise any form of flash-driven storage may experience bit rot due to pesky electrons escaping their traps in the long run. Note this is only a problem with long-term archival and connected flash will have programmatic refresh cycles to ensure data is kept in pristine shape. Just don't leave it in a drawer for 5 years, or you'll be disappointed.

Maybe, but I have had many more flash drives die on me than mechanical ones, so it doesn't feel smart to rely on flash type drives for long term storage, especially as many of my drives will end up sitting in a drawer ... maybe add the odd file to them now and then, and retrieve some now and then.

Verbatim and MAXELL discs seem to be the only discs I have that have survived for decades TDK? Nope. SONY? Meh. Memorex? (let's just not)

Back in the old days, when the PS2 users all around the world was burning PS2 rips, most of the knowledgeable mod-providers was recommending Verbatim burned at a speed of just 2x to 4x speed... and this is up to this day the "gold standard" of a quality backup on a disc. The reason is simply, because the PS2 had a pretty weak drive and the drive was constantly used, as there was not a HDD doing this task... so, if the quality was bad... the drive was defective pretty quick, simply to much stress.

Yet i am not sure about the current quality of Verbatim but it is considered the almost only "true quality disc provider", which surely comes at a price.

The lifetime of a pressed disc is probably between 50 and 100 years, but a lot of guessing here because countless factors play a role on this. The thing for certain: Nothing will last forever and it is always good making backups and even more important: Refreshing those backups and validating its redundancy (so it will need some redundancy code...).

The lifetime of a HDD can be up to 20 years i would say, but i would not recommend using it for that long, instead replacing it every 5 to 10 years with another one.

The lifetime of a burned disc is very tricky but if we use the very best burning methods on a quality Verbatim (or comparable) disc... i guess 50 or even more years are possible. For some very special disc maybe even 100 years, which is comparable to a pressed disc at least.

At worst... it is not more than 5 years... the quality is playing a huge role here.

Of course the big advantage of a HDD is, you can rewrite this HDD with no quality loss on this medium. It is even recommended using it because the magnetization will become "refreshed" and in this case more solid. On burned discs this is exactly the opposite... the quality will decrease with every new rewriting and the best quality is achieved by using a R-Type with only ONE very slow writing process.

On a external HDD, according to my experience, NEVER use a weak PSU... because those PSUs provided are sometimes not sufficient... it is a critical weakness because the manufacturers want to save up some coins. If the PSU is faulty, the HDD might still work but the data could be stored with very weak magnetization... leading to corruption in maybe less than a year or all of a sudden at any point. So i always recommend using up to 2 internal HDDs (with a very solid PSU) for backups first, and using external stuff as a additional backup (up to 2) only. Never use a external enclosure with prebuild HDDs (this is the ugly junk they want to recycle), the only rather good prebuild external HDDs are from G-drive (my experience here) but they are expensive. NEVER use a external enclosure with some "auto-standby-mode" in order to save power. It will totally mess up with HDDs and create countless load-unload cycles which is way worse then letting a HDD run non stop (during backup or even 24/7).

Internally, with a good PC supply... the HDD will usually write the data properly. However... my best experience so far was using a Toshiba HDD and Seagate is not very solid, as far as my experience goes. I once was meeting someone doing mass backups on a huge array of HDDs and he had the same experience: Seagate he would stay away from it, and he is using Toshiba as well. Toshiba is not a quiet HDD but this is not intended for a "server grade"... a server is based on raw security... noise is no matter at all. Not that it matters for backups... and a SSD used for games is quiet.

Best method: just copy your games to floppy disks and keep them under water. To save space, you can copy only the game shortcuts. If you want more space, you can use cheap pendrives.

Now seriously... I'd use three copies: internal HDD/SSD, external HDD and sometimes DVD's.