>>909218If 1 HDD fails, I have the other and lose at most ~30 days of new data. If both fail at the same time, I would be thrown back 2-3 years probably (I keep the old HDDs when I regularly swap them for new ones). A double failure is unlikely as long as you don't use two HDDs from the same batch (go with different manufacturers for additional safety). The biggest unlikely danger is something like a fire while I'm not at home, since all my data is on-prem and I can't grab the HDD if I'm not there. For this reason I do annual back-ups of business data onto CDs/DVDs that I can keep somewhere else. Some friend rent a deposit box with a bank and keep one of their HDDs there, but I'm too lazy for that.
The much more realistic failure mode is overwriting your back-up. If you only keep 1 back-up, be it on-prem or in the cloud, the very next back-up you do, will overwrite your old one. So if you accidentally delete a file or the contents of a file and then do a back-up, you destroyed your recovery mechanism. If you were actually concered about safety and security, keeping a single duplicate in the cloud is far from sufficient, especially if you sync regularly or even instantly.
>>909224>>909227Everyone needs to do their own risk evaluation. I deem the risk of losing access to a cloud back-up far bigger than two HDDs randomly failing the same day (one of which sees constant use, the other being physically separated and only plugged in for 5min a month). You only need back-ups if shit hits the fan anyway. Then I'd rather have a physical copy that I can plug in and instantly have full access to all my data, than needing to download and unencrypt everything over the internet. I've heard too many horror stories about people's accounts being suspended for bullshit or no reason at all. Ever since I rotate semi-regularly I haven't had an HDD failure in pretty much 15 years.
