The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/ZYinMD on 2024-06-25 14:28:08.
2.5 years ago I backed up ~12TB data from HDD1 to HDD2 using robocopy. Over the 2.5 years, there were minor changes made in 1, which I mirrored to 2 with robocopy again.
Recently I ditched robocopy in favor of FreeFileSync. FreeFileSync has an option to compare bit for bit (very slow, not the default setting). I tested it once, it took 2 days, and it didn't find a single bit of difference between the two copies.
I guess that means no bit rot has occurred in the ~12 x 2 TB in 2.5 years?
(In default mode, FreeFileSync determines whether 2 files are identical by comparing name + size + modification date, if all three are equal, then it's a pass. I believe robocopy and rsync are similar in that)
I think for 90% people, 90% of the data are videos, music, images, and texts. These things don't really care about bit rot. From now on I'll just stop worrying about it ๐