I store all my data (including photos and documents) on a encrypted external drive because I don't have enought space on my machine. With Beyond Compare I sync all files that I need from this drive with my machine.

This harddrive is backed up a few times in a month to another encrypted harddrive via a Raspberry Pi Server in the LAN. On that Raspberry Pi also Nextcloud is installed to allow syncing specific files with other members in the house.

The first harddrive that is connected to my machine directly is also backed up to another drive once or twice a year.

ethernet wire + old laptop (desemble no lcd no keyboard hide it in the box etc in the wall) + flash directly dietpi on hdd/ssd put it back in the wall + ssh in to it and encrypt hdd or ssd + put firewall openvpn (for reaching over wan) = NextCloud is your sollution

rpi might work too, but slow.

But if you are paranoyed that someone can steal your *photos. From your home.

Then use batteries from old laptop, take them out 3.7V 6 or 8 of them and use few for cloud backup if main power is off and for powerup rpi with cammera for face detection and movement sensors and main electricity inficator and usb 3G or 4G ethernet dongle if that thief will turn off electricity you can get notification via 4G network. If electricity is not turned off you still can get motion detection.

Use rpi gpins to send electroshock to burn that hdd.

Good luck experimenting.

External hard drive or NAS would be great and have at least three copies of everything, preferably more. Ideally, all three sets should be on different media, and one copy should be “off site”.

I use usbs to back up data every quarter. Store them in envelopes with dates then I know what I can reuse

Depending on the storage technology. SD cards and USB sticks can experience “cell voltage drift,” and lose data integrity in 5-7 years.

I have four quarterly backups so am ok with this. I also have a copy on my disk

External drives are your friend right, you can get them encrypted or a full NAS.

If you're worried about Google (i.e. closing your account) then get some redundancy and use another cloud as well?

If you're worried about your documents being leaked by Google then you probably need to rethink a few things.

A file cabinet is the simplest thing that might work.

It will hold a lot of hard disks...and floppy disks...and zip drives...and Qic tapes...and CD-R's...and DVD's...and SD cards...and USB sticks...and of course paper.

I've found a discouraging amount of bit rot in my older (15+ year old) magnetic media. I think if you can pull a file off of magnetic media that's older than 10 years old, you should should be feeling lucky.

Move the files to a new spindle every decade, at the very least.

You may want fireproof boxes in there or in place of it. Assuming one wants to maintain the data in case of a fire.

Flood damage is more likely than fire. Catastrophic dwelling fires are very uncommon. An offsite duplicate is probably better.

I think flooding is highly dependent on location (as long as it's not a basement). As is fire. Look at all the homes destroyed in the wildfires in recent years. The incidence of house fires not related to natural events is decreasing, but the speed that a house burns is faster today than in the past.

It seems like every 2-3 years I hear about an apartment building in my area that has a fire destroying multiple units or the whole building. When I lived in an apartment I deliberately chose an old complex because they were concrete - better fire protection, less noise transfer, and fewer pest concerns/points of entry.

In a dwelling flood damage can happen be from indoor plumbing. Be from roofs.

And if you have this stuff in a fireproof box or filing cabinet, those are not concerns, provided it's not in the basement.

Also, water damage from pipes or roof leaks is categorically different from flood damage. Homeowners insurance covers roof and pipe leaks, but you need flood insurance for actual flood damage (basically water from any other sources).

Ah! I had so many of my beta users ask this precise question that I did some research and wrote up this article: https://photostructure.com/faq/how-do-i-safely-store-files/

TL:DR; Have several copies on different devices. You might want to invest in a NAS. Extra credit if a copy or two is not in the same place. Recent NAS and Linux distributions support filesystems that can guard against bitrot, which may not be common, but a layered data security approach is best.