[nickpsecurity]

One thing someone like you could use is append-only storage of anything critical. The idea is you never delete a file until you run out of room for it. There's a whole series of versions of a file with your system pointing to the recent one. So, if something bad happens, you can rewind an individual file or the system as a whole back to some point.

It might take a lot of extra storage to do that. I could see never losing work being worth throwing terabyte drives at a system only using 120GB. Add one or two for RAID, one for local backup, and some remote storage like Backblaze or Glacier for best results. The backups would just keep the current versions or periodic snapshots to reduce cost.

Note: I don't know if this feature is supported in the Windows ecosystem right now. Versioned filesystem was a feature of its predecessor, OpenVMS. It did much of what I described plus clustered apps. Only difference was storage was too limited for the versioning to really go as far as I'm advocating. Mainly just posting to give you an idea of how extra storage might help you should your OS support the use case.

[xyzxyz998]

Windows does have file versions, I can go in properties and do this but I think you have to set it up. I like your idea and I've been using git for the same (since I have very little binary data I don't feel bad using the free websites with a git commit -a; git push)

But this was another of my motivations behind this question- (which I didn't mention), why buy 1 4TB which will crash anyway but not 4 1TB. As people are getting more pro- I think Microsoft should lead with home RAID solutions. I know there was Windows Server Home but that's no more now. The OS should do integrated backup to various remote storages.

[nickpsecurity]

I thank you both for your replies. Far as RAID, it would be nice for Microsoft to do more in that area for desktops. I do remember when I used Windows there were RAID appliances that you could set right next to your desktop. You just plug in some HD's. Plug the appliance into the desktop. It does the rest.

I'm sure they're still around for anyone that wants better RAID than what Microsoft has. Probably got a lot cheaper, too.

[xyzxyz998]

Looks like windows does RAID (win 2000) and pooled storage (whs, win8). And you can setup particular folders for periodic backup and retrieve history.

But I'd like to be able to retrieve every single version for desired partitions/folders and the ability to store to cloud.