WTF is an extra HDD?
datahoarder
Who are we?
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
A mirror array is not a backup. So therefor I would use at least one of those extra drives for a weekly backup of your data. You want some sort of not real-time backup in case you get cryptoed for example
That is true, but I was indeed not counting it as such, I currently just have the cloud as a backup.
If you've got cloud backup you're good, keep the drives in a drawer as spares or have another use?
Is it ok to ask what sort of data you have?
Yes definitely! It is personal data like family videos, photo's and documents mostly. I'm using this nextcloud for the whole family.
Primary rule of thumb is 2 physical backups and one offsite backup(cloud). Remember physical medium can fail or degrade
I understand, but I was thinking, since I have a cloud backup, if my drive(s) fail I cam still always recover, correct?
Cloud service may also decide that they're tired of being in business and close without notice. Unlikely, but possible
What if the cloud server corrupts your data in transfer or worse shuts down its server without notification. It can and has happened.
For example, I had a cloud backup went to get it and the server could no longer be found. That was with Dropbox mind you. I lost 10gb of important files because of it. Never trust just one source of backup. Always have a secondary just in case.