It's A Digital Disease!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/fallenguru on 2024-09-20 12:17:28.

Would like a cold (offsite) backup. Don't have the money for LTO, or the amount of data to make it worthwhile (<20 TB, and not all of that is important). I've been using M-Disc for the really important stuff (documents, family photos, ...), but the capacity and $/GB are prohibitive as far as backing up the hoard goes.

The only solution that comes to mind is using HDDs and praying. Are there any makes / models / features that do comparatively well (badly) at being left on a shelf? Anything to look out for?

Are external drives preferable (included enclosure and controller) or should I go for a hot-swap caddy and use internal drives?