Sector failures on a single drive are not independent random events. So doing this on a single drive is not perceived to be a good idea.
The only choices, imo, are multiple disks, or automatic backup to offsite (dropbox, box, one drive, etc).
The only choices, imo, are multiple disks, or automatic backup to offsite (dropbox, box, one drive, etc).
""" Modern HDDs present a consistent interface to the rest of the computer, no matter what data encoding scheme is used internally. Typically a DSP in the electronics inside the HDD takes the raw analog voltages from the read head and uses PRML and Reed–Solomon error correction[144] to decode the sector boundaries and sector data, then sends that data out the standard interface. That DSP also watches the error rate detected by error detection and correction, and performs bad sector remapping, data collection for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, and other internal tasks. """
With the answer I gave above, and the fact that it's already being done in hardware, I don't think adding another layer of EC will be fruitful.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Access_and_int...
Also, EC at the block level would probably spread the blocks around the drive. This means any read would need to seek all over the dang place trying to reassemble files and that's a bad access pattern for spinning disks. Real bad. Like, the worst. It might even reduce the effective lifetime of the drive. So it would be not only correlated with device failure, it could precipitate it.
Maybe it would be ok on an SSD.