Summary: Backup hard drives are inexpensive and a great way to save important information. Is storing your backup hard drive in your safe adding any protection?
Do you know what the maximum temperature is that an external hard drive can withstand? (not at which it operates, but an external temperature it can withstand.)
I bought an external hard drive with the intention of backing up my data once a week and storing the hard drive in a fire safe for the remainder of the time in case of fire. I was reading through the manual for my safe the other day, and it said it protects the contents by making sure the interior doesn't raise to above 350 degrees in case of fire. This got me thinking: the papers I have in there would be ok at that temperature, but would my credit cards and backup hard drive be ok? Wouldn't they melt? I read over the hard drive manual and even called the support number, but no one could give me the maximum temperature that the external hard drive could withstand. The only temperature numbers I could get were its operating temperatures.
I'll be honest - I don't know the answer to your specific question. I'll make an extremely uneducated guess, and maybe some readers will comment with better information.
But...
I, personally, would never do what you're suggesting. But the good news is that you're 80% of the way to what I do, in fact, do.
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First, I'm not surprised that you can't get a straight answer from the manufacturer - if they don't publish the information already, I'm certain it's not something that they would want to be held accountable for.
My totally wild guess - that you may not hold me to - is that your drive might be OK at 350 degrees. Now, "OK" is a relative term. I'm envisioning the drive itself being ok, but the case, the cables and everything else melted into a plastic puddle. You might be able to retrieve your data, but it won't be a pretty process.
I'm also expecting that your credit cards will part of the plastic puddle. (Though they're easier to test - take one of the cards you get in your junk mail every so often, and bake in a 350 degree oven for, oh, half an hour or so and see what's left. Just make sure you put it on something disposable.)
Now, why do I think this is such a bad idea?
Well, besides the fact that I'm not certain that the drive would actually survive the heat, I'm fairly certain that other damage could be worse. I vaguely recall that most property damage resulting from a fire is, paradoxically, water damage. What happens if your safe gets flooded? Paper can, in many cases, be dried out. Yes, hard drives can as well - but again, you're pushing the envelope, and it may be a difficult recovery.
And of course the safe may be buried for days in the rubble of a true catastrophe.
While I do have a safe in my home, I do not rely on it for anything related to my computer.
What I do rely on, is off-site storage.
My personal situation is fairly simple: I have two physical locations, say home and work, and at each location is an external hard drive to which data is being backed up nightly. Every so often I swap them, simple as that. That way each location has off-site backup at the other. If either location is destroyed, the other remains.
A more common scenario is to simply take your hard drive (or backup CD's, as I used to) to the home of a friend or family member.
Depending on how much data you're talking about, this might also be a good use for some of the on-line storage that your ISP or other service providers might give you for free.
But if you're going through the trouble of creating and updating that backup disk, I really recommend taking that next step and storing it (or a copy of it) off-site, somewhere.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - What backup program should I use?
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Ask Leo! - Replacement hard drive: how can I copy files from a failing drive to its replacement?
Article C2759 - August 18, 2006
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.
Posted by: KSS at August 19, 2006 6:02 AMThey 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.
Posted by: tw at August 20, 2006 6:13 AMTW 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.
Posted by: KSS at August 20, 2006 10:19 AMTW: 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.
Posted by: Thor Johnson at August 21, 2006 5:57 AMRatings 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.
Posted by: W Smith at August 25, 2006 6:07 PMDear 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
Posted by: Shiku at September 26, 2006 4:10 AMThe 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.
Posted by: Paul at October 21, 2006 9:29 AMMost 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.
Posted by: Richard Stare at November 19, 2006 12:20 PMThe following web site states that class 125 must keep the interior of the safe at less than 125 degrees F for 3 hours. I lived in Arizona for a few years, I would think a hard drive could handle 125 F for a while. Only $3000... depending on the model. Seperate paper and data storage areas. I just did a google on "hard drive safe".
Posted by: Some IT fellow at June 4, 2007 2:36 AMhttp://www.klsecurity.com/fireking_safe/3-hour-best-fireproof-data-safe.htm
Hi, I am making backup to an external harddrive but found when forced to restore the backup it did not work, lots of error messages etc. NOW I would like to take another rout - I want to mirror image the C drive but also want to mirror image the D drive. Is it possible to mirror image 2 drives to one drive and for the mirror drive to stay updated with the new data placed on the C and D drives? If so, what software will be able to do this?
Posted by: Mirna at April 22, 2009 8:23 AM