snatch1e

As a common source, obviously, internet archive is my choice. If I cannot find anything there, I start googling, so basically no favourite archive repositories for me.

As it was mentioned, it's the normal prize now. Just check the prices next time for alternatives or check on a few sellers.

You just check the best $?TB ratio and warranty time. That's really all the things you need when choosing the drive. Also, remember that there are only 3 brands Seagate, WD and Toshiba to look for.

Depends on your configuration.

If you do not need to passthrough the whole HBA to a VM for example, then, just go with the most convenient way for you.

Check the specs and decide on your choice. Also, depending on your workload maybe the best option is to get the cheapest drive.

I follow it for the most critical data, other data get just one copy (but those data is not important to me)

Even if it grows, if you found a good deal on Black Friday you just get it because the price is good nothing else.

I have offsite location as my cloud cloud backup. That's basically, it.

Not really much options there. Depends on the budget as well, but you won't have anything close to the price of backblaze personal.

Remember to make backups of the healthy drives as well.

If you have a good deal already, just have them. If there any good deals on Black Friday, then get them as well. You cannot ever have too much drives ;)

I am not really sure about flashdrives, however, SanDisk SSDs are just horribly unreliable. Also, I would only use flashdrives for the temp data, not as the main media for any data.