I need a new long term backup HDD

[Easto]

I'm going to be consolidating and culling information that I have on 4 separate HDDs. I am probably going to end up with just a little under 2tb of data after most photo duplicates are eliminated etc, so I'm looking at a 4tb drive.

I'm guessing that a mechanical HDD is the best way to go for long term storage? I spent some time looking through the charts at BackBlaze but there's just way too many variables for me to come to any conclusion. When all is said and done format isn't my biggest concern, it's reliability. This is going to be a definite purchase in the immediate future. I've got some free time to spend going through everything and there's no time like the present.

Suggestions?

[Philip]

There are not many players in the HDD space anymore, I just buy some WD reds for storage. Double up on the data, and you will be safe

I have an old low-power PC running Linux with a network share and a few HDDs. I have it run a periodic script that syncs the data between identical size drives, one is visible, the other is just local backup for the first one.

[Paft]

I'm going to be consolidating and culling information that I have on 4 separate HDDs. I am probably going to end up with just a little under 2tb of data after most photo duplicates are eliminated etc, so I'm looking at a 4tb drive.

I'm guessing that a mechanical HDD is the best way to go for long term storage? I spent some time looking through the charts at BackBlaze but there's just way too many variables for me to come to any conclusion. When all is said and done format isn't my biggest concern, it's reliability. This is going to be a definite purchase in the immediate future. I've got some free time to spend going through everything and there's no time like the present.

Suggestions?

I use a pair of SSDs in RAID to do backups for my clients (I do hosting - Bear Den Hosting, LLC). I find they're plenty reliable and with backups you're not so concerned with the reads and writes on them - and the lack of mechanical parts provides a lot more reliability. In terms of cost it seems to have gotten equivalent for the solid, reliable brands as well in terms of $/TB.