Comment Re:DVD (Score 1) 251
I've got 3 2 TB USB drives (encrypted -- about 700GB free). (1) Main drive with my data. (2) Backup (which get's synced nightly) and (3) one at my mother-in-laws house in a drawer.
Every year I buy a new drive to replace the (1). The old (1) becomes (2), the old (2) becomes (3). And (3) gets wiped and either given to friends/family or ebay. Also, drive (2) and (3) get swapped every week or so the "off site" drive is never more than a week or two out of sync.
I've been following a version of this procedure for 15 years (starting with IDE drive drawers) and increase size as necessary. So far I haven't had a drive completely fail once, although at the tail end of the life cycle of one I was begging to get some SMART errors.