But stavros, you started this thread by complaining that the solution is bad because in order to protect your data you have to create additional data to protect

But stavros, you started this thread by complaining that the solution is bad because in order to protect your data you have to create additional data to protect. This is the most basic definition of data resilience and misses a very critical point: with this in place you only have to worry half as much about each data set randomly failing (you halved the chance of simultaneous failure, all else equal). Then you moved to the (unsupported) argument that consumers don't have reliable options. Then to the (unsupported) argument that hard drives fail after 5 years. Then to the argument that some users are not tech savvy enough to use anything more complex than a CD. The last one is the only realistic yet still relatively weak complaint. It doesn't invalidate in any way the option proposed in the article. Looking at dvdisaster creating an ECC file is at most just as complicated as generating the data you're looking to protect. Using a commercial cloud storage solution is equally straight forward. A consumer friendly NAS is very easy to use while not so obvious how to fix in case of failure but that's why you're there to set it up and set a sync to the cloud(s). I hope you taught your father how to select appropriate quality media blanks, what are the optimum storage conditions, how often to check that the data is still readable, what to do when a disc becomes unreadable or very hard to read, how to replace the optical drive when it fails or there's dirt on the lens, and so on.