Fire/water proof small safe for storing external hard drives?

SarcasticDwarf

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2001
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What do you want it to protect against? Protecting against water is easy. Fireproof? Not really feasible in something like that.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
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www.slatebrookfarm.com
Not fire "proof", but there are plenty of safes on the market that will protect documents in them for up to an hour (or something like that) in typical temperatures encountered in house fires.
 

xSauronx

Lifer
Jul 14, 2000
19,582
4
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Originally posted by: Jumpem
Does anyone use something like this, or have a suggestion?

I found this one on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sentry-F...f=cm_cr_pr_product_top

i think the pricier ones are rated to higher temps, fwiw.

really itd be cost effective probably to just get another external drive and keep it somewhere else, and update it once a month, as a firesafe isnt a guarantee that something will survive a fire, if the fire is too hot and lasts too long you could be screwed anyway.
 

Jumpem

Lifer
Sep 21, 2000
10,757
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Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf
What do you want it to protect against? Protecting against water is easy. Fireproof? Not really feasible in something like that.

Fire and water. I plan to keep another duplicate external drive offsite somewhere too.
 

her209

No Lifer
Oct 11, 2000
56,336
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It may be fire proof, but what good does it do if it gets up to x degrees inside the safe during a fire thus ruining whatever you're trying to protect.
 

imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
5,199
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It may be fire proof, but what good does it do if it gets up to x degrees inside the safe during a fire thus ruining whatever you're trying to protect.

Most fire ratings are for paper @ so many hours. Your HDD will be toast far sooner than that. Paper is in the ~450 degree area, most HDDs are dead in ~200's.
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
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It may be fire proof, but what good does it do if it gets up to x degrees inside the safe during a fire thus ruining whatever you're trying to protect.

if it can protect paper, it can protect a drive. anyways if it is your only backup and single site,,that is the wrong way anyways.
 

Leros

Lifer
Jul 11, 2004
21,867
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Just use offsite backup. Even if your house is nuked, your data will still be safe.

You can get unlimited offsite backup for fairly cheap with Mozy, Carbonite, Crashplan, etc
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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<bumping 4 different threads to advertise the same company seems to be blatant spamming. Thus, the posts are gone. -Admin DrPizza>

Wow you registered here just to post that? (as well as in another thread necro in mem/storage)

As far as offsite backup goes it doesn't pay for those with limited connection speeds and lots of data. IIRC Mozy is no longer unlimited for home users.
 
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imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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if it can protect paper, it can protect a drive. anyways if it is your only backup and single site,,that is the wrong way anyways.

Actually no. The 450 degree temps will wreck the drive while the paper will hot but fine otherwise.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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if it can protect paper, it can protect a drive. anyways if it is your only backup and single site,,that is the wrong way anyways.

Paper begins to char (darken) around 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
I tell people this all the time...put your tapes/drives/optical media in your oven. Set temp to 350 and leave them there for an hour. When cool remove and try to read/restore. If successful a document safe will work. :D

This is why they have media safes with an upper interior limit of 125 degrees F.
 

Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
18,811
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Does anyone use something like this, or have a suggestion?

My wife bought a small fireproof safe a few weeks ago from wal-mart, not sure what the rating is.



what porno could possibly be that important?

I do video blogging on youtube, and use videos and images as content for my websites. Protecting the original videos and images is important if I ever have to file a copyright infringmene suit against someone.

Then there are the years of digital images that my wife and I have taken of the family - christmas, birthdays,,, stuff like that.

This past weekend my wife and I went camping at a local lake. Before we left, we put our external drives in the safe.
 

preslove

Lifer
Sep 10, 2003
16,754
64
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A buddy of mine switches out his backup drive with one in a safety deposit box at a bank every week.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
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Put your valuables on the lowest possible level of the home at floor level, or better in the ground itself. As long as it is water tight your stuff will outlast any fire. Remember fire burns up so the closer to the ground the less likely it will experience high temps. My uncle is a fire chief and has been a fireman for decades. He told me stories all the time how in apartment buildings things in safes would be destroyed but people who had their money stashed in coffee cans under the bed didn't lose cash. The ones with wall safes often did.