It’s no secret that I like watching TV. From movies to TV shows, I like ’em all. I’m also a very happy cord cutter. This means I use a combination of services ranging from Netflix to Amazon Prime for my video content. I also have a fair bit of media on Plex. Like a lot of people, I use Plex to store digital copies of my media. Doing so, let’s me watch my DVDs in a format that doesn’t require me to leave my couch.
Unfortunately, Plex is dependent on me to maintain a working storage option here at home. In my case, that would be a USB connected hard drive attached to an old computer. For you, perhaps it’s a NAS with multiple drives.
On paper, this sounds fine…until one of the hard drives fail. Remember, this isn’t a redundant NAS setup at my house – this is a basic hard drive that could crash given enough time. This means if my internal hard drive crashes, my configuration files for Plex are toast. I’d still have my media, but I’d lose my place instantly if I’m part way through a movie or if I’m watching a TV series. It’s even worse if I lose the external drive with the media. The configuration files would be safe on the internal drive, but tons of media files would now be gone with the wind. Both situations aren’t okay with me! This is why I run automatic backups. (Read the rest at Freedom Penguin)
