this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Contrary to what people suggested, I would advise against optical discs or tapes and would go with HDDs you check every few months. They don't rot like optical media, the only thing you have to worry about are the motor spindles getting stuck and other mechanical failures.
It will also be the cheapest option. With tapes you need expensive drives and they change the version every few years. Tapes only are better if you store hundreds or thousands of TiB of data.
Which data so you want to save? Mostly games and media? If so, consider giving them to your friends and family to copy and enjoy, which some people call a 'friend backup'.
All form of storage rot, just at varying rates and likelihood of failure after X years. Keeping the data active and checked is the only way to guarantee it will survive over time. But multiple copies across formats will probably be good enough for 99% of cases.
Most recent iteration of optical media (Blu Ray) doesn't rot. Actually older media didn't rot either if stored properly. I still have 20yr old CDs and DVDs that are usable. And if you're going to let something sit in moisture or dust or whatever, a HDD wont fair that well either.