Will my backup hard drive stored in my safe survive the heat of a fire?

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A friend of mine, who parks on the street, keeps his backup cds in the trunk of his car. Worked pretty well until our recent heatwave.

Hi Leo: Couldn't a harddrive be put in a large safety deposit box in a bank, the chance even if a fire broke out in a bank that area of the bank has nothing to burn around it in that large vault? Just a suggestion, Regards, Tom

I've generally heard that hard drives don't survive a fire even when in a fire safe, but it may really be more they don't survive such that you can just plug it back in and use it. PC Magazine put one of the hard drive recovery services to the test by dropping a hard drive in a camp fire for the evening and then sending it to them and they were able to get all the data off -- so, it may cost you a lot, but the the data may be recoverable. See: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1911131,00.asp

That said, I think Leo's recommendation to use a trustable offsite location is the best.

They won't survive! Well, there's a very good chance they won't. It's not melting you need to worry about, so much as the Curie Temperature. It's the temperature, for a given (ferro)magnetic material, above which it is no longer magnetic. If the temperature of the platters inside your hard drive rises above their Curie Temperature, ALL your data is gone IRREVERSIBLY. (The camp fire case above must not have exceeded the Curie temp)

I don't know the Curie temperature for the materials used in hard drives, but I've found suggestions they might be quite low. So you'd need a safe capable of keeping the internal temperature below 100 C, maybe even lower.

TW is correct. I hadn't realized the Curie Point for typical HD platters was so low. A typical fire safe won't keep temperatures that low for any significant period of time.

TW: Where did you get the 100C for the curie temp? Most materials' curie point is much higher than that?

There are also different classes of fire safes; you can get a standard one (which allows the internal temp to get to 350), or you can get a data-rated one (I forget the temp, but "supposedly" you can keep tapes in it).

That said, there's nothing like an off site backup (especially if the site is condemned and they won't get it for you until the investigation is over)...

Depending on how much you trust the keeper, it might be a good idea to encrypt the data... Might be becuase if there's an error in the data, it will scramble a whole block of data (2K? depends on the algorithm) instead of a couple of bytes... which, depending on the backup type and compression may *really* make the data hard to get at.

Ratings for safes use both time and temperature, and many, if not most, small home safes are under 15 minutes. Another rating is how long the safe will resist drilling or other burglary attempts.

Look for a UL rating. A Class B safe should resist a 1700 degree (F) fire for 30 minutes with the interior space not exceeding 350 degrees. Approximate size for such would be 4'x2'x2' and 700 pounds for around $2,000.

As previously mentioned, there are better and cheaper alternatives for data backup than home safes.

Dear Sir/Madam,
I have a MAXTOR ONE TOUCH III USB 2.0 it does not seem to work well or work at all with my Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. What must I do? Please help!!!?

Shiku

The safe you need for data storage is a the Fireking Media Vault (see: http://www.fireking.com/products_records_data_mediaVault.html),">http://www.fireking.com/products_records_data_mediaVault.html),">http://www.fireking.com/products_records_data_mediaVault.html),">http://www.fireking.com/products_records_data_mediaVault.html),">http://www.fireking.com/products_records_data_mediaVault.html), which has a one hour UL rating that ensures the interior is kept under 125F and humidity under 80% in a 1700F inferno - this will keep ANY digital media in tip-top shape after even the worst house fire (about 1200F). It's a stand-alone unit - but not sure how much it retails for.

Otherwise, if you already have a fire safe (with, say the standard UL 350F rating to preserve paper) you can get something like the Schwab Media Cooler (http://www.schwabcorp.com/File_Cabinets/schwab_media_cooler.htm) which, when inserted in the safe, will do the job of the aforementioned fireking product.

For my own data, I use this second option. If I have a fire I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Cheers,

Paul.

Most fire safes are designed to keep the contents below the flammable temp of paper. But most fire safe mfrs also now make specific media safes that are designed to keep the contents at or below a max temp of 125 degrees F and 80percent humidity for 1 to 3 hrs depending on the model. As for whether this is safe for hard drives, I checked the Western Digital website and they list the max temp as 149 degrees F while not powered up. So I think the media fire safe would be an OK choice for protecting hard drives on site.

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