I have an RPi 4 running the latest Hass OS and core. I rotate SD cards to mitigate an SD card failure. I create a backup, then swap out an SD card, then restore from backup, then check for any OS or core updates that are needed (I assume not all is in the backup). The two cards should now have the same HA configuration.
I have one card out of 3 that presents a problem, after restoring my latest HA instance from backup, Zwave will not start. This does not happen on the other cards.
Has anyone seen this? is this a corrupted SD card? I would have expected catastrophic failure, but it seems just zwave fails to start. My dashboards are visible. Other add-ons seem to be running.
If your restore doesn't 'restore' then I would say yes.
You have described a very complex and most likely unnecessary routine to prevent a rare condition. Maybe the cure is worse than the disease? How much downtime with backup/restore/update and swapping out the cards?
Have you worn out the SD Card contacts with frequent removal? They are not designed for too many insertions, with the gold plating getting thinner as the profit margins shrink.
A replacement card may not entirely fix the problem if the socket on the Pi has worn too. Replacing a SD Card socket on the Pi is not for the faint hearted and it may be cheaper to replace the entire board.
Consider a more frequent digital backup rather than a frequent physical one, using your network to clone the backup data to a different location such as the cloud.
Modern SD Cards such as the A2 style or better, large enough with free space so inbuilt levelling routines are able to function well have reduced the risk of data loss considerably. Usually you get warning prior to data loss. Maybe that would be money well spent to get a better quality one if you don't want to move to external drives.
The HomeAssistant backup routines received a lot of attention quite a while ago and are now stable and well proven. Consider keeping a verified copy of your backup elsewhere as the wiser approach than physical swapping of your media.
In the meantime, replace the suspect card. Data corruption by random bit swaps is far worse than complete loss, as you often have exhausted your good copy generations by the time you realise, and cannot revert.