It's A Digital Disease!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/Python303 on 2024-09-24 14:41:10.

I wonder: Should we replace our external HDDs every 10? 15? years? And what are good practices when doing so?

My situation as an example: I have a few 15 year old external 1TB HDDs. I now bought a new 4TB one. My goal is to have the data on this new medium that can last another x years longer. But then I think some data may have already been lost on the 1TBs without me knowing it. Do you check your data before copying it to another HDD for the long run and how?

I only power on my HDDs once every few months to copy data.