In message , Huge
writes
On 2007-08-28, Alex Buell wrote:
On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:53:05 +0100, I waved a wand and this message
magically appears in front of Steve Firth:

Maybe I'm trying to join Alex?

You could have your very own digital vault, you know. Just buy another
box with a RAID array, bung Gentoo on it, set up SAMBA/CIFS and get all
your PCs to backup to it with rsync..

Doesn't help much when your house burns down.

Currently thinking about installing a fire safe, seems the data safes
are much more expensive than the paper safes, I guess this is because
they have to keep a lower internal temperature for backup tapes.

Anyone know about this? I'm only intending to keep hard disc based
backup, no tape, so I guess paper safe would be OK; also the digital
keypad type fire safes seem a strange idea, as I have thought the
electronic keypad and memory would be destroyed by a fire, rendering the
safe unopenable. Anyone got experience here?

x-post to uk.d-i-y added

--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

"bof" wrote in message
...
In message , Huge
writes
On 2007-08-28, Alex Buell wrote:
On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:53:05 +0100, I waved a wand and this message
magically appears in front of Steve Firth:

Maybe I'm trying to join Alex?

You could have your very own digital vault, you know. Just buy another
box with a RAID array, bung Gentoo on it, set up SAMBA/CIFS and get all
your PCs to backup to it with rsync..

Doesn't help much when your house burns down.

Currently thinking about installing a fire safe, seems the data safes are
much more expensive than the paper safes, I guess this is because they
have to keep a lower internal temperature for backup tapes.

Anyone know about this? I'm only intending to keep hard disc based backup,
no tape, so I guess paper safe would be OK; also the digital keypad type
fire safes seem a strange idea, as I have thought the electronic keypad
and memory would be destroyed by a fire, rendering the safe unopenable.
Anyone got experience here?


Fire safes are often recognisable by having external hinge pins. The hinge
can then be ground off after a fire to open the safe. Those built solely for
security would not have an exposed hinge pin (clearly!). The last time I
bought a fire safe the only recognised standards were the German VDMA 60/120
standards which define that the contents must not increase in temperature
by more than something like 30degC when the safe is buried in a fire (can't
remember temperature) for 60 or 120 minutes. They are also dropped during
the test to simulate a building collapse etc.


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

bof wrote:
Currently thinking about installing a fire safe, seems the data safes
are much more expensive than the paper safes, I guess this is because
they have to keep a lower internal temperature for backup tapes.

Anyone know about this? I'm only intending to keep hard disc based
backup, no tape, so I guess paper safe would be OK; also the digital
keypad type fire safes seem a strange idea, as I have thought the
electronic keypad and memory would be destroyed by a fire, rendering the
safe unopenable. Anyone got experience here?

In a serious fire, the safe will either fall through the floor or be
buried under the one above. I would not count on a hard disk surviving
the shock. Yes, data safes are designed to keep the temperature low, but
maybe not low enough. If its data, get some space on a server (or two)
offsite and keep copies there.


--
djc