Greetings and salutations,
As an avid data hoarder, I feel qualified to respond to your inquiries.
To start: I
absolutely get where you're coming from on the "openness" of the internet. At any given time, the ability to freely share legal pornographic content seemingly faces a litany of threats, oftentimes not terribly serious but terrifying notwithstanding. Having said that, I would counsel you to temper your aversion toward internet-based data storage solutions. All in all, you really want
multiple copies of all of your data across multiple devices and mediums, and having
one copy in a highly-reputable cloud service is not a bad idea.
As for storage solutions for
you, specifically: it all comes down to the amount of data which you intend to store, really. Particularly because you are a frequent traveler and are out on the open seas, I absolutely cannot recommend a
hard drive of any kind to accompany you. External HDDs can be quite good, yes - I have extensively looked into them for my own personal use - but the fact of the matter remains that they are mechanical disks with delicate, electromagnetic parts which can easily be damaged (possibly irreparably) if delivered a sufficiently injurious shock. (I have learned this the hard way.) Needless to say, the vast majority of external HDDs are manufactured with drive enclosures to safeguard against this, but even then there can be other issues. For instance: an external HDD may not have a SATA connector even when shucked, meaning that it can only be accessed via its proprietary USB male connector. ...You get the idea.
I really don't mean to diss external HDDs, they can serve a great purpose, but I personally feel like they are best used for data which is constantly transferred between the drive and other storage media (i.e students transferring documents and other such files for school). As it happens, HDDs
are arguably best for long-term storage as opposed to (most) SSDs (MLC SSDs are extremely durable), but HDDs
seriously can't be on the move all the time.
But I digress.
The bottom line of your use case comes down to the fact that you absolutely need storage media which is shock-resistant and waterproof. Were an HDD to fall into the ocean, I would never bet on it surviving. Were an SSD or flash drive to fall into the ocean, I'd give it at least even odds at still being accessible and fully intact data-wise. Compounded with the fact that SATA SSDs and USB flash drives continue to plummet in market price, investing in one (or both) of those types of drives is what I would do to start off, were I in your shoes.
Last but not least: r/DataHoarder is an excellent resource for all things long-term data storage, both online and offline. Please take a gander if you'd like (a) second opinion(s). Hope I was of help.
P.S. Love your username! Way more of a Unit-02 fan myself, but I very much personally relate to Unit-01's pilot (lol).
