Help me choose, guys !

Hard drive, at least you know you're the only one watching. Make multiple copies if you fear data loss, or store on cloud only after putting them in a password protected (encrypted) .rar/.7z file (with a password that isn't your name or anything trivial, possibly, lol)

Why is this an either/or ?

Y'know how streaming movie websites rotate their media, and how some movies or shows seem to disappear? I feel that that might happen to my data. A 4 TB hard drive is about $100. I would go that route. Need a backup? When you can afford to do it, buy a second one and keep it in a safe deposit box or something like that.

Hard drive. But back up your most critical data, photos and vital documents, to a thumb drive.

Have these doubly backed up.

You can always get back movies and music, but personal photos can never be replaced if lost.

I'd actually say have both... as we must remember when there was all that cyber hacking and people couldn't access any of their accounts..

External hard drive, then encrypt it. Here's what I bought (5TB). At NewEgg for about $100.

Cloud storage is a no brainer, woman