Well so sit back, cuz this is gonna be a long-un...
I've been hoarding data for about 23 years now. Its always been my desire to "cut the cord" so to speak, to have access to a large media library without the need for cable or internet streaming. I've been storing my data on hard disks off and on for the past 23 years and have lost much of it due to drive failures. Sometimes its on the backups, sometimes it isn't. Thems the breaks.
I've always thought having a separate ARCHIVE(look up the difference between an archive and a backup if you are unfamiliar) to store my most precious files would be a good idea. My Archival solution has the following requirements:
-Designed for that purpose
-Shelf-stable(think "leave it in the back of a closet for 20 years" stable)
-No ongoing fees or maintenance
-Low cost
-Offline
So, let's look at some options:
Hard drives - cheap, but not shelf-stable, not designed to be used for personal archives. If you keep it spinning it'll last about 5 years. You can get more time out of one if you store it properly(stable temperature, low humidity) and perform regular maintenance(spin the drive up once or twice a year). Then at best you can get maybe 15 years off the drive. Great for the data you use every day, good for backups, not an acceptable archive solution.
Tapes - designed expressly for this purpose, but very expensive. Especially for larger formats. I've experimented with various tape drives over the years with limited success. A tape backup did once save my skin when an HDD failed, so that was nice. But over all its just too expensive for a consumer-level archive.
Online backups - a good option, but if the monthly fee should lapses, your data goes bye-bye. So fails my requirement on several counts.
Flash memory - its good but the costs add up, also the technology wasn't designed for this purpose so we really don't know how a drive will fair if left in a drawer until the mid-2040s. I'm thinking long-term, here.
So that brings us around to optical disks. There are a couple of competing formats in the long-term archival spectrum. Most never actually made it to market. There are some options that are superior to m-disc but cost more and are "iffy" when it comes to long-term support for the product. But m-disc offers a badly over-looked key advantage: Mormons. The technology was invented at BYU and is being used by the Mormon church to store genealogy data. That means the product's success on the open market doesn't matter as much as how well it works for the people who built it. If it proves valuable in that niche role, we will continue to see readers and writers produced indefinitely. Maybe not in very large quantities or for very good prices, but its still probably the best bet for my lifetime.
So that's all the reasoning.
Now we get into what I actually do: my main data store is (shocker) a NAS where I store all my live data on 2x8tb drives in RAID1. My offline backup is a third 8tb HD attached to a smart plug which I turn on and sync periodically. My ARCHIVE is a stack of 100tb m-discs sitting in the back of my closet, where I save a 4th copy all my favorite movies, shows, and personal files. Also a copy of Horizon Zero Dawn because its my fiancé's favorite game. My most important documents are even backed up to microfilm. Yes. I am that hardcore of an archivist. Probably next year I'll be adding an online backup to the mix in case my house burns down(a very real possibility seeing as my lovely fiancé just HAS to have a gas powered stove).
So there you have it, my four(five?) pronged solution to ready data, backups, and archives.