I have archived data (almost a couple hundred TB in double copies) on more than 60 HDDs, about half from WD and half from Seagate, from several HDD generations, i.e. with capacities of 2 TB, 3 TB, 4 TB, 6 TB and 8 TB, most being from the 4 up to 8 TB generations. All HDDs were more expensive WD and Seagate models (i.e. with longer warranty times), not their cheapest consumer HDDs.
All files were checksummed for error detection. When the HDD content was transferred to tapes after some 3 to 6 years since the initial archival, almost all HDDs had a few errors, which sometimes were not reported by the drives even when they were detected by the file checksums.
Only the fact that all files were stored on at least 2 HDDs has prevented data loss, because even when both HDDs had errors they were in different locations.
A few years later I got a QIC tape for my 486 PC and had similar experiences. There was even the time I tried to restore a several kb configuration file from a Tivoli tape robot and was quoted that it would take 18 hours and figured I could recreate it in much less time.
If I did it all the time I'm sure I would do better, but 2 out of 3 times or so I had tape backups fail on me, contrast that to almost always being able to read HDDs, even if there is some bit rot.
Would using something like ZFS done effectively the same thing? Not being critical. I genuinely want to know more.
* https://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/Alvin_Cox%20[Compa...
I'm sure most last longer, but as a CYA I wouldn't necessarily want to rely on that assumption.
Many drives I did that with lived happy afterlives after being revived, some having been brought back from the dead more than once.
The biggest expense in TAPE storage has always been the tape-changing-robot. (and if you ever worked with SUN HW -- the software was super expensive and the UI/UX of the backup software (logato? I cant recall the name -- was a PoS (not point of sale) and I hated it...
However, with that said, the price/GB/TB for tape is very cheap...
What would be a good idea would be to use tape duplication robots to take one tape to N tapes on a fairly regulated basis (like every 2,3,5 years) where you read and copy to new such that the medium (the cheap tape) is cycled through...
They're not used as a backup, rather I would start with the data disk and as the price goes down and my needs grow the drive would be replaced with the higher capacity one. And there is an extra set of drives (copy of those) I always back them up.