Cloud storage for 8TB of music files on an external HD

[[a reliable SSD for a somewhat similar price so why would I pay $48 a month forever]]

Just be sure to park your backup drive some other location than where the "live" data lives.  Otherwise a fire, flood, even electrical anomaly (if the backup drive is connected) could easily wipe out both the live data and the "backup".

I agree with most of what ghdprentice says.  Some of the other responses I have some concerns with.  I'm a former software engineer who enjoys commercial-grade computer systems in his house, and I have a hobby in collecting electronic data (including digital audio).

I use Backblaze's various service for my home computers.  I use their unlimited data services (which is about $90/yr for a 2-year plan, or under $8/month).  This is what you likely want for your situation.  It works fine, and with a check of a box in the settings app you can choose any external hard drives to back up.  I back up a similar amount of data on my Mac with digital photography files on an external 8TB SSD.  I'm not sure where you're getting $48/month, and where you see that it doesn't back up external drives.  I've been a loyal customer of Backblaze for several years now and haven't encountered a single hiccup with them.

I also make use of Backblaze's B2 service, which allows you to use the cloud storage space as your see fit, with my Linux server.  I use Duplicacy as my backup software to Backblaze B2, but there are a number of choices (Restic, etc).  With this you can choose your own encryption key, so even the most paranoid about computer security can relax here, as the data is stored in a fully encrypted state.  The pricing for this is more complex, and is related to the number of transactions and the amount of storage used.

A few comments relating to some of the answers above:

* Local and off-site backups are a must.  (Cloud storage counts as off-site.) I keep backup hard drives at my office at work, so a house fire/flood/theft/etc can be restored quickly with the drives in the office.  I rotate 3 different backup drives so that two are at my house and one is at the office.  I also have Backblaze for my cloud backups, and my partial restore tests have been completely successful.

* If you're going to store data at a friend's house, safe deposit box, etc use a hard drive (not SSD).  SSD's/thumb drives don't hold data without being powered on periodically as well as HDD's, as ghdprentice mentions.  After 6 months or so the probability of a solid state device having perfect data retention starts to drop.  Besides, HDD's are cheaper on a per-TB basis.

* Someone mentioned RAID as a backup.  RAID is not a backup.  It is a mechanism for allowing large amounts of storage and the ability to tolerate the loss of of one drive (RAID5) or two drives (RAID6).  It does not protect against accidental deletion, malware, etc.

* Honestly, if I were starting this hobby right now I would probably subscribe to a couple streaming services and call it a day.  That said, I enjoy the concept of owning the data, and I do well at managing it, so having Roon play things that I want to focus on is really neat.  Of course, if we've made investments in CD's, SACD's, and digital downloads for decades and have spent a lot of time and effort organizing them into our digital collection, then there's a valid argument to just continue it.

Hang in there, and spend the effort to safeguard your data.  Data storage has never been faster or cheaper, so take advantage of the exponential improvements over the past few decades.  

Michael

Sufentenil (you must be an anesthesiologist),

"I use Backblaze's various service for my home computers.  I use their unlimited data services (which is about $90/yr for a 2-year plan, or under $8/month).  This is what you likely want for your situation.  It works fine, and with a check of a box in the settings app you can choose any external hard drives to back up."

I have this very BB service and I check the box to include my HDD in the backup, but it doesn't back it up and their website states this:  

"Network Drives and NAS

Network-mounted drives, network-attached storage (NAS) devices, remotely mounted computers or volumes, and shared volumes are currently excluded from Backblaze Computer Backup. However, you can back up network drives using Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage."

Is an HDD included in the above exclusions?  This I need to figure out because in spite of checking all the boxes, it doesn't back up my HDD. (Their customer service is among the worst I have encountered!) What it does backup it does at snail's pace... it took weeks to back up a mere 500 GB on my Mac mini and at that pace it would take an eternity to back up my 8 TB of music on my HDD!  

Other issues thoughtfully addressed.  I agree that most music that one has in their collection of CD's is available on the myriad streaming services and I am happy with Tidal Hifi.  But, carefully curated CD's that one owns might be want to be backed up for play via Roon, etc.  Some years ago, I ripped all my CD's to my HDD and play everything back via my computer via Roon and a DAC for playback.  My 2100 SACD recordings are not available at that level of density on any streaming services.

Another other issue is local storage and I note conflicting points of view if an external HDD or SDD is preferred.  I was surprised to find that SSD's might not be as robust I assumed.  I have several Seagate et. al. HDD's that failed... I just expect them to fail.  I already have my music files backed on two HDD's, but seldom turn them on which seems necessary for their vitality.

I will see if I can figure out how to get BB to backup my HDD and will report back and will hold off on purchasing a SSD.  Thanks for all your input.   

The operative phrase is that "your mileage may vary".  Most of the time, most folks can get by with the streaming service of their choice and be happy.  If most of the  time is good enough and a music-less future is OK, Thats all you need.  My esperience has included a Lifetime subscription to a storage service that disappeared after seeming fine for several years, some hard drives that started clunking 5+ years into their service life, and SSD's that stopped responding once they were 3/4 full.  I won't even talk about lightning strikes or politicians who decide that if they can't have it all, then no one can or at least no one that is not on their list of supporters can.  

Bottom line, enjoy streaming when you can.  For me, that is utterly unreliable. I have lost my connection to Audiogon's server a couple of times just typing this note. Where I am moving to, there is no fiber or cable broadband.  Just satellite if the sky is clear.  Bottom line - Keep everything, rip everything you actually like, and keep copies on as many types of media as you can in as many places as you can afford.  

My current long term media is M-Disk,  readable on almost any optical drive and with an expected service life more than 10X that of a person.  It'll just have to do. 

NAS. That's it. You buy it, install drives, and you have your own FREE 'cloud' storage. In the unlikely event that a drive goes bad, you have RAID, so you can replace the drive without data loss. You can make a copy of your data on a seperate drive and keep it 'off site'. I'm surprised no-one has mentioned this here.

I spent over a year 'backing up' all my CDs using EAC onto my PC, now also placed on my NAS, and on another drive kept off site incase of fire/theft. Although, now I'm a Qobuz subscriber, I find I use my copied music less and less.