A few months ago, I almost lost all of my data. I had a 4TB HDD that I used to store all of my data on. Movies, TV shows, screenshots, videos, pictures, etc. Everything was stored on that hard drive. In early 2024, I decided that it would probably be a good idea to create a backup just in case. I found an old 1TB HDD that I could use to create a partial backup of my data. I was not able to transfer any movies or TV shows, along with some videos due to size limitations. I was using around 2TB of data on my 4TB HDD, so I had to leave some less-important data behind. After creating a backup, I went on with my life.
In mid 2024, I was taking apart my computer to swap everything to a different case. When I tried plugging in my 4TB HDD after transferring it to the new case, I realized that the SATA connection PCB was broken. At the time, I didn't think it was a big deal. I was under the impression that I could just order a new PCB from China and call it a day. After a month-or-so, I decided to buy a new PCB on eBay which set me back around $25 USD. When I got the PCB a couple weeks later, I screwed it into the HDD and plugged it in. After turning on my PC, I realized that the drive would spin up for about a second, then it would stop. It was almost as if it were bootlooping. I unplugged the drive and started doing some web searching.
I had made a huge mistake. Before I purchased a new PCB, I threw the old PCB in the trash since it was broken. What I didn't know at the time was that each HDD PCB has a chip on it that is required for it to function, and you have to transfer it to the new PCB. I don't have the skills or tools to even do that, and I had already thrown the old PCB in the garbage. I had no idea what I was going to do.
After sitting there feeling hopeless for a little while, I remembered that I had made a backup of my data a couple months prior. I searched around for the 1TB HDD and plugged it into my computer. I was only really missing a month or two of data, which wasn't great but a lot better than losing everything. None of my movies and TV shows were present, but luckily I had a list of everything written down, so I was able to rebuild my library of media. I purchased two 2TB HDDs for $20 each on eBay. One HDD to hold all of my data, and the other to hold all of my media.
This situation inspired me to start backing up my data regularly. You can, of course, use the 3-2-1 backup method. I personally still use that 1TB HDD for backups, along with a couple old laptop drives and some USB drives (all encrypted of course). You should NEVER rely on cloud storage solutions for reasons I might write an article about in the future, but do not use any cloud storage. I do not have a NAS because I feel that a NAS would be highly unnecessary, although a NAS is way better than using cloud storage because you actually own your data. I plan to purchase more hard drives in the future, but for now, I'm working with what I already have.
Save yourself the major headache of potential data loss and create backups today. Losing the small amount of data that I lost was bad enough. I could not even imagine losing everything. That would be catastrophic.