or you can write your private keys in some place that no one would expect to find them, so they would not be subject to hardware failures
yes transferring your private keys to another place will be the best idea..or you can store all your coins to deep freezer...
it is better to sweep all your addresses into a new address that you create with your new wallet.
every wallet has this option to sweep addresses when you import, which means you send your coins to the new wallet instead of risking contaminating the new wallet.