Hi friends. I would like to purchase a fire safe to store some backup drives at home. I realize best option is to keep physical backup hard drives offsite, however I do have a need for home storage and would like to protect from fire / water.
From a feature and size standpoint, this Honeywell Safe seems like a good choice. However, it gets poor reviews in terms of moisture buildup.
Any recommendations from this audience? thanks – jay
I would think you’d struggle with anything with fire that doesn’t have a cooling mechanism, once the environment gets hot the safe will start to heat up which if it gets too hot would affect the drives. Offsite is your only guarantee.
Hard disks in a fire safe can survive a house fire. Just look for the appropriate heat/outside temp/duration rating.
I would start by talking to local locksmiths and security companies to see what they have at a discount. We were able to get 80% off on a pretty expensive safe for our video archives at work. And no, the safe had not already been in a fire.
Unfortunately, fire isn’t the only thing to worry about. What about theft?
In September 2007, Francis Ford Coppola, “five-time Oscar-winning director of The Godfather trilogy and other films“ lost 15 years of data including his writings and family photographs when thieves broke into his studio and stole all his computers and cameras, etc. Everything was backed up, but the thieves took the backups too.
I agree with @geoffaire. At least one copy of your data needs to be offsite.
I appreciate the peripheral advice. I understand backup principles and have necessary strategies deployed. In addition to current processes I would like an onsite option. Thanks @cornchip for the suggestion. If others have personal experience with a purchased product I would welcome the input.
No need for further “store it offsite” suggestions. I do understand that. Thanks all — jay
Thank you for this topic. An on-site safe is something I’ve been considering.
In addition to drives, I want to store documents, some valuable collections, and records onsite but securely. For adequate size, I’ve considered a fireproof gun safe. I have no guns, but the size and features available in gun safes is interesting.
One thing I don’t know about is what happens if a safe with electronic locks goes thorugh a fire. I assume the mechanism would be damaged and the safe would need to be drilled out.
Yers ago I got a used fireproof file cabinet. Incredibly heavy so not subject to casual theft as it requires a hand truck to move it. It has a one hour rating for paper. I also keep other important papers and stuff in there. I also have off site backups. Check out used furniture stores as a source for file cabinets.
Lots of safes are rated for time to keep paper from burning.
It’s harder to get info on how long they stay cool enough inside to keep data safe.
I have seen a safe that had a USB port in the outside wired to the inside so drives could be plugged in inside, and to the computer, so it could be safe from fire, and in use at the same time.
Good luck, and share your information.