re: Questions about Longer-Term Storage (drives)

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Should those drives last in storage for 10 years or so

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Probably, but I wouldn't trust them. There are several things that can go wrong and either corrupt data or make them unreadable. First, data is stored in magnetic fields, which degrade over time. 10 years is probably not long enough to make any real difference, but I believe there is a decent chance that at least some files would be corrupted. Second is the fact that HDDs are mechanical, and like every machine they tend to seize up if not used for long periods. Lubricants dry up, parts stick to each other, etc.

But if you fire them up every year or two and write new copies like you mentioned, you should be fine.

Honestly, though, archive management is a real pain, and you might want to look into cloud storage options. Amazon AWS has a "cold storage" option called Glacier for about $1 per TB/month. Also, Backblaze has an unlimited data storage plan for $60/year. I probably wouldn't trust a 3rd party service to be around forever, but it might give you some peace of mind vs. trying to manage all of the data locally. It doesn't matter how many copies you make, if they're all in the same physical location, one disaster can take them all out.