Hey everyone, Trying to find a more long term solution to my data hoarding problems. I am a creative and a video editor/videographer. I deal with huge files constantly, my weekly data usage could be measured in the TBs. Problem is, I am dirt broke, I do not have the budget for any full blown RAID or NAS solution. Currently I just have a bunch of 10-20tb WD elements drives. The problems I have with the current system is that there is a bunch of them, and I dont have any copies, which means that if one fails, its gone. (i do have the most important stuff copied, but losing the rest would still be pretty bad.)
The solution I've come up with is to get a 2 bay docking station for Internal HDs, then get two sata drives and put them both in, then have them mirrored. Then when I fill them up, I swap them out for a new set of drives, label the sata drives and put them in storage. What I like about this solution is that It gives me the option to expand into a RAID/NAS using those drives in the future, and when I need to use two drives at once, I can take out the mirrored drive, and plug in an old drive, without needing to swap out the current drive. And the sata drives will be cheaper (maybe I could even purchase Refurb drives since they'll be mirrored?), and store more compactly then the elements will. Are there problems with this idea? if not, would something like this docking station work? If so, why? and what would be a better solution?
Edit: Thanks for all your responses! what ive realized with all this is that I am actually ok with my current data management, while its not ideal, It doesnt make financial sense for me to invest in this just for it to be more convient, what I actually want is backups and redundency. So now my real questions is: What is the best solution to ensure the safety of my data for as little money as possible?