That’s a bit below the level of reliability I need,sadly - before doing that I could also go for a non ECC solution.

Debatting with myself and to a lesser degree what to do in terms of our homeserver situation. While the proxmox node has more than enough CPU and RAM capacity left, the NAS, an older Synology, is full to the brim, EOL and needs replacement.And sadly being a mini PC the proxmox node is unable to get the HDs connected.

So something new is needed and I would rather have my setup streamlined and combine the two.

But that is… More difficult than anticipated. I really would like something power saving with ECC ram that can take at least two PCI-e (SFP+ and a potential graphic card for AI later on). That can take 4,better 6 HDs. And at least one,better two NVMe. …that basically means self building which I am happy with, but all current builds I calculate come out somewhere south of 2000€ (including two new HDs, as two old ones need to go). And that’s sadly out of the financial possibility at the moment.

If only the fucking Ugreen (DXP6800)would support ECC. While not ideal in terms of PCI-e it would be enough to do the trick.

Don’t go to Proton or Tuta - both are impossible to get out of basically, do not support free standards and Proton is scumy in terms of their marketing.

Mailbox.org Infomaniak Fastmail Posted

Just to name a few.

Yeah,one of the few drawbacks they have. Most people can live with it, but it’s indeed one of the things they should be providing by now but don’t

Hetzner

Yeah, that’s sounds solid. Just make sure your next of kin know where to look and that there is something to look for.

Ah, a Kiwi. Say hello to your sheep’s from me. (Sorry,former WA resident here, couldn’t resist)

But yeah, we are using exactly that model - and it’s currently only 20 NZD less from what I pay wholesale in Europe for it. So it seems like a pretty decent price.

The drive itself is solid. We currently have around 10, maybe 15, at our clients and it works without any hassle.

I personally recommend to store the disk’s offsite(I store them in a locked box in a bank vault) and some of my clients choose to store another drive there to be extra safe,but I personally don’t see the point.

3-2-1 is the minimal consensus and not recommended anymore for everything you need to reliably have access to after a long time - the fact that some ransomware viruses intentionally have a very time they are laying low to decrypt old and rarely used files is one of the main reasons. Healthcare, finance, taxation, accounting, etc. are all sectors that heavily rely on WORM media and long term tape storage.

You are right that a spinning disk often can work for 10 years - but there is a reason they are exchange earlier in a professional setting. Not all of them will. And you were talking about cold storage disks. This is something even the manufacturers do not recommend - for a reason.

There are still problems with the hard drive solutions:

• Powering up the drives for a short period does not help with error correction when sectors get compromised

• As said before it is relatively risky as mechanical parts of HDs do not like to be moved only occasionally. While this problem has become less severe over the last years it still exists.

• The updating will include copying from one drive to another - this process is highly suspectable to errors that might be correct with the right file systems - but it’s not a guarantee.

• And the main problem: You want to achieve a long shelf life - which means you must consider periods of time when you might not be able to maintain the data. What happens when you are not able to do so? And your next of kin are not quite ready to go through your things? To give you an example: You copy your data on the HDs today, maintain the disk’s for four years and want to change disk’s in 5, which means in 2030. Sadly a weeks before you are able to do so, John,your neighbourhood’s stupid school bus driver hits you and you suffer a major traumatic brain injury. Even worse,you don’t die right away but suffer for another 5 years in a nursing home before a infection gets you. Your family meanwhile is not quite ready to get through your things as you are still alive, aren’t you? (For real,this is the case a lot) After your funeral it takes them another year to finally get through all your things. Now your drives haven’t been used for 7 years. Even worse,one of them slips through your next of kind hand and hits the ground hard. How big do you think the chances are the data is still available? I think we both know the answer. While M-Disks are also suspectable to damage there are hardened multi-disk cases that make them pretty much indestructible - nothing any HD case can ever achieve.

You need a designated M Disc capable burner,yes. (Not generic BDXL,there are slight differences) There are a few on the market though - they cost around 100-150 bucks usually.(In theory you can use a regular writer sometimes - I know people who do that,but why risk that?) I usually recommend the verbatim to my clients,they are dirt cheap and work flawlessly so far.

For reading the discs any regular data-capabale blue ray disk drive will do.

This is actually terrible advice. WORM media exists for a reason and telling someone with a mere 3-2-1 he will never loose data is absolutely irresponsible.

Neither is it a good idea to use regular hard-disk for offsite-cold storage. A really really bad idea.

Hard drives loose their data fast if not powered (within a few years),so do SSD based media. Furthermore the former are very suspectable to mechanical destruction, electromagnetic interference,etc. And even if for some reason your drives last that long there will be nothing to connect them to - you know how we connected hard drives 25 years ago? Via SCSI/IDE. Good luck finding a converter to these now. If you go back further you need ISA controllers for the drives.

This is a really bad idea. Really really bad, especially with the goal you want to achieve. Your data will be gone within 5 to 10 years.

Wrong post, ignore this.

Currently the only solution for a consumer are M-Disc Blue rays. They are currently the only “write once read many” media available that are preferable in these types of situations.

The media is comparable cheap - you can safe your amount of data for around 80-90USD/€ initially(or less for more but smaller discs) and then pay around 10$/€ per year for the new amount of data.

The chances that in 20 years someone is still able to read them are fairly high - there are numerous businesses that are using these disc as WORM media to backup important data on a medium that a opposing lawyer later cannot claim “was manipulated”. In 50 years it is very likely to be readable at least by professionals. The discs itself are rated for much longer storage.

If you write on them unencrypted there should be no problem of writing on them. Additionally they do not have issues with byte rot,etc.

That is not gonna work - read up on byte rot.

If you are really sure about the disk space requirements you can easily get one of the endless mini PCs with a N100 or a small Intel on it and chuck two NVMe’s in it and let these run as RAID1.

Have a decent backup plan,though.

I really really would love them…if only they would allow ECC RAM and more RAM in total. Then they would have built a killer device.

My current strategy might be a bit over the top,but it works.

I have two main entities that contain data worth backing up - the NAS and to a much smaller extend my Proxmox cluster (which is partly within my house,partly at Hetzner).

User PCs do not have any User data saved, they all work with network drives mapped to the NAS, only irrelevant amounts of data are stored on them that gets backed up via Free File Sync. For the Notebooks I use the same concept as we are using a WG VPN 99,9% of the time anyway,but some important folders get also synched via Free File Sync for offline use if no mobile connection is available.

For proper backups I have basically three classes of data that I maintain: Prio 1: The real real important stuff. Photos of once in a lifetime events, important documents, etc. Prio 2: The stuff you still don’t want to loose. All other photos, the scanned documents, home folders, VMs/LXX backups, configurations, etc. Prio3: Everything else,mostly data that could be downloaded again. Easily. Movies, etc.

Prio3 data is currently only living in the NAS and does get backed up once in a while on a external hard drive. It’s mainly backed up as I am lazy and in case the NAS craps out I don’t want to reload all the stuff…that would take months.

Prio2 data gets backed up fully: For the NAS data: It gets backed up to B2 with versioning according to my needs (usually 3d,2w,3m,1y,but that depends highly on the source). Additionally full external hard drive backups every few weeks. (I would kill to get my hands on a proper tape drive again,I had one back in the day,but it was used and old and died) Some data is also stored on Synology C2 atm,but I will replace that soon with another cloud provider, likely Hetzner.

For Proxmox: Basically the same, but I use TUXIS instead of B2 and Hetzner instead of Synology C2. Additionally I have a old PC with Proxmox backup server which turns on once a week and safes the whole cluster before turning off again. In the future this PC is planned to replace the External hard disk’s,but currently hard drive prices are insane.

For the P1 data: Same as above,but it’s definitely staying on a second cloud provider. Additionally I also create archive blue ray disk’s every few month. (Usually every 4). These go into the safe deposit box at my bank and additionally to a second storage location.

And of course I have detailed instructions about this in my will so even if both my wife and I die my kid can figure it out.

Wow, he was “unlucky” to be ahead of his time.

Nowadays there is a good chance he would have gotten away with some legal trick or be pardoned and made the secretary of justice or FBI boss.

Just adding a few thoughts:

• If you already use Omada for APs it might be worth it to use their switches as well. Makes networking fairly easy. MKs are nice (I use them together with Omada myself),but basically everything you would need can be achieved with the Omada Switches as well. Only for the actual Gateway/Firewall I would rather go with OPNsense or, in a pinch, MK, with the later being inferior to OPNsense.

• Multiroom Audio I would very much recommend Amplipi, but I also might add that central audio with reasonably high quality is not as easy as it sounds electrically - I have seen more than a few installations that failed due to induction from other sources, timing issues,etc. It is sadly harder than one would think. It gets much much much harder for TV/motion picture relevant things as things are even more timing sensitive then.

• have a look at KNX for all smart home related things. It’s the gold standard.