Remember that with gogrepo you don't have to download everything in one swoop. You can let it download, then if you want to pause the downloading for any reason (because you need the bandwidth for something else, or your monthly data transfer quota is exceeded, or whatever), you just abort the gogrepo download command with Ctrl-C.

Then later when you are ready to continue, just run the same gogrepo download command again. It checks again what has been (completely) downloaded already and skips them, and continues downloading the rest.

However, if there is a long time between those download sessions (like a week or more), it may be advisable to re-run the gogrepo update command too in order to get new file details, in case some of the to-be-downloaded files have changed on GOG's end in the meantime, which would mean gogrepo is trying to download older versions of files, failing (=skipping them) as they are no longer available on GOG's servers.

From what I've seen, most of the newer installers are bigger, while the unpacked size is roughly the same. My guess is that GOG uses a faster algorithm/method for compression, to save on time, but of course, that results in bigger file size for the installers.

The worst I've seen is the The Witcher 2, growing by a whopping 3 GB. I have an older installer (setup_the_witcher2_ee_3.4.0.25) which is 15,544 MB. The most recent one (setup_the_witcher_2_3.5.0.26_(a)_(10696)) is 18,682 MB. Both are around 23,512 MB unpacked. The game files are identical, with the exception of two small files (some uncensored patch - 600 KB together), which are missing in the older installer.

So I guess it's obvious they're using a far less efficient compression method. Oh well, maybe they got a deal with some hard drive manufacturers.

Their timestamp is Jul 6 2017.
They are not the new obfuscation installers we are discussing.

I keep all my installers backed up on my main HDD and an external HDD. I do this for everything I have that's important.

HDD's mostly.

M-Discs for the stuff I care most about. It doesn't take up nearly as much physical space as you might imagine. I could probably backup my entire library on Blu-Ray M-Discs and the number of discs would take up no more space than a briefcase.

I didn't say they are the new installers with the obfuscated files and as I see it, this thread is about backing up games/installers in general, not specifically about the latest, obfuscated ones.

So, I was making a point about a very possible reason why the installers keep getting bigger without actually receiving any updates to the game files, giving as an example Witcher 2, on which I happened to see the biggest difference between file sizes. Probably are other installers who grew even larger due to weaker compression.

external hdd, every time there's a game update, or new games are added to my library I run lgogdownloader from a folder on my 1TB external hdd

I mostly use DVD-Rs to burn and backup my games and related essentials (mods, tools, updates, etc.), and if the installers are too big, I backup them on external HDDs.

External 1 TB HDD.

I use a forklift...

More seriously:
Currently on 2 external drives of 3TB (mind you there's a lot more than just GoG games)

I bought a blueray burner last year, haven't installed it. When i can i intend to burn everything to disc...

I worked for a national drug store chain, floating back between photo lab and store side management for about 4 years. They provided us with "archival grade" DVDs and CDs for burning photos to disk but they were peeling apart after a few months. That's why I was wondering if the labeling was fake.

I have a couple dozen librarians as clients. Let me bounce it off them and see what they use.

Thank you

i just don't think hard drives are a suitable backup. i have a bunch of internal drives with large, speedy storage as primary. external is a big no-no for me. i use large speedy usb flash drives to transfer data to other computers but i use optical media for my permanent backups. something like archival is very welcome from me.

This is something discussed over and over. Physical media is not any safer than hard drives, they can warp and get damadged. Plus read/write updating can be more difficult. Also, how many boy ray discs would you need for 15tb? That is what each of my raid containers hold and they are the size of 4hdds with a handle so you can take them to an outbuilding or other place for offsite.
Flash drives are definitely no use, don't they have loss over time if not powered.
Hard drives as a price per tb, and with the raid security far outweighs physical media.

i agree, but it's my choice

I really don't understand people who use optical media for backups, in this day and age. They are far more cumbersome to use (try keeping your optical media archive up to date when e.g. GOG releases updates, do you reburn all the affected discs?), and in my experience burned optical media are anything but secure, no matter what kind of "high quality" optical media you use. They get bad in a few years.

I've told over and over how much of my data stored on optical CD-R and DVD-R had gone bad when I tried to recover them. Keeping the same data on some big ass hard drive is far easier (to maintain too, or to check they are still ok). Especially if it is an archive you also use and not just keep away; it is far easier for me to find some game or movie or a piece of music from one big fat hard drive, than from a pile of optical discs. Just enter a search key words in File Explorer and you find what you want instantly.

But to each his own I guess...