What is Data rot? Or Data degradation?
Data degradation is the gradual corruption of computer data due to an accumulation of non-critical failures in a data storage device. The phenomenon is also known as data decay, data rot or bit rot[…]
Source https://wiki.604kph.xyz/wiki/Data_degradation?lang=en
On Linux, using a btrfs partition plus a raid 1 for example with Borg backup is a nice, economical way to prevent this.
Timeshift also works with btrfs
Quote
Data rot cannot be avoided through incremental backups because once it happens you can only backup the rotten copy. RAID can protect you. But regular users rarely use RAID.
Few of the most advanced filesystems do take care of this using integrity checking and self-repairing algorithms – btrfs and ReFS. Btrfs is from Linux and can be used on desktops as a general purpose filesystem. ReFS, on the other hand, is applicable to Windows Server platforms. A older filesystem (still in use) with such capabilities is ZFS.
Source http://tuxdiary.com/2014/05/24/data-rot-and-how-to-prevent-it/
Further reading
http://tuxdiary.com/2014/05/24/data-rot-and-how-to-prevent-it/
And never ever forget that raids are not backups after you've implemented your raid 1 or whatever with btrfs to prevent data rot.
This rule still applies Quote
[…]the 3-2-1 rule is a good practice. 3 copies of your data, 2 local and 1 offsite.
Further reading
https://www.raidisnotabackup.com/
Further reading regarding raid