The cables and how they have to be managed/positioned in a case. I've had panics over a drive failing when it was just the cable after I'd already replaced the drive, restored data, and ran tests on the old drive that turned out to be fine each time.
I suppose I couldn't guarantee I haven't, but I keep a total backup, and other backups based on file lists. I keep a record of every file of importance that I've ever written/modified/interacted with, and those lists themselves are also git managed.
I compulsively look at the rsync backup running to see what's going to transfer, and typically do a dry-run first. That's no perfect solution, but it works for me. If I see something odd I don't quite remember, I check the hashes between both drives, and every time it turns out it was just a path change since I try to keep my data as organized as possible.
rsync arguments are just the plain `--archive --acls --xattrs --verbose` and depending on which backup I'm doing, `--recursive`, `--delete`, `--files-from=`. Nothing other than vanilla at all.
I have external parity for everything with rsync. I don't have any storage that isn't matched with external backups. Fortunately I've never seen any bitrot or had a drive fail on me since I tend to replace them before they do. And yeah, I could add in some extra HDDs for RAID, but this is more a personal choice because of how much I hate SATA.
Filesystems like ext4 are because I value boring and rock solid stability over semi-experimental status of modern filesystems with all the features.
They give me regular access to Fable, or I'm going to unsubscribe and lobby the heavens for Cohere to release a consumer AI service with a lady's name instead of something like "Claude."
I'm sure people have reasons for taking these things as far as they do with ZFS, and everything else that goes into what is commonly considered a "NAS." But I've found great convenience in a tight NFSv3 config running from a single high capacity HDD with ext4 on a Linux machine (primary system that's always on anyway while I'm around/awake) making things available to my other devices for the electricity and overhead cost of one machine instead of multiple.
I try to keep my network configuration restrictive by default, so I'm not too concerned about possible security arguments running it from my main machine. I've probably committed some great sin here, but is plain NFSv3 and secondarily Samba (for compatibility) really not enough?
I'm sure most of it is above my head, but I purchased the entire set in a mispricing for approximately ~$40 some time ago, and I'm really happy to have it in my library.
I am unsure if I can rationally justify saying this, but I am left with disappointment and unease. Comparable to when a series I care about changes showrunner and jumps the shark.