Backing Up Your Digital Photos in a Fireproof Safe - Without Opening It

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.networkgarage.com/2005/10/fireproof_safe_backup_1.html#more' target='_blank'>http://www.networkgarage.com/2005/10/fireproof_safe_backup_1.html#more</a><br /><br /></div><i>"As an amateur photographer, I take a lot of pictures. Recently, I completely converted to digital photography because now digital cameras and photo printers produce high quality results. Before digital, I archived my photos as negatives or slides. Today, all of my precious photos are stored digitally on my hard disk. Like most people, I don't have the time to insert writable CD's or DVD's to backup these photos on a regular basis. I tried an online cloud backup service Connected DataProtector but over time I had to bump up my plan to $279.95 per year. I needed a better solution that met my requirements...The solution was to purchase a fireproof safe with an internal power strip and host a network attached storage (NAS) device in the safe. Using HomePlug Powerline (Ethernet over powerline), I connected the NAS device in my fireproof safe to my home network. I then created nightly backup jobs to copy modified files from the PC's in my home network to the NAS device in my fireproof safe. The big ticket item is the fireproof safe which I had already planned to buy."</i><br /><br />Now that's some interesting lateral thinking - it never occurred me to use powerline networking in a scenario like this, I always thought I'd only need it if all the Ethernet cable in my walls suddenly combusted. :lol:

[brianchris]

I agree its VERY creative thinking (I can't say I would have ever come up with that idea of Powerline Networking), but there are some potential problems with this idea:

-Most fireproof safes are designed to protect paper and similar materials, not computer media. There are actually special fireproof safes designed for computer media. Of all computer media (CD, DVD, Floppy, etc.), I'd imagine Hard Drives (including those contained in a NAS) are the most sensitive, so hopefully the safe he purchased is rated to protect Computer Media.
-I was going to say this solution doesn't proect against theft (including theft of the safe itself), but looking at that particular safe he bought, its pretty big, heavy, and uncrackable, so I don't think that's too much of an issue.

As a side note, Iron Mountain is about the cream of the crop when it comes to online backup solutions, but there are others that are liekly cheaper. I use www.ibackup.com and have been very happy with it......I wonder if the author of that article ever considered other online backup providers?

NONE THE LESS, very interesting and creative!

[jeffd]

the problem with that is a single HD is still not an ideal form of backup. If the electronics inside or outside break, the HD is toast unless you opt for an extreamly clostly recovery service. Unless you used a raid, I would stick with a backup method that allowed the media to seperate from the writer, and also split up the data thats being backed up.

I think a weekly backup to dvd would be just fine. Also I might look into an alternative storage location (in the above safe, I think a dvd would melt far easier then a HD would to die due to extreme heat), a safty deposit in a bank is usualy costly, are there other places out there that offer up mass "safe like" storage services?

[klinux]

Unless you used a raid...

RAID is used for speed and/or redundancy but not as a backup service! I am pretty sure you know the difference but I just do not want someone with less knowledge thinking since they are doing RAID, there is no need for backup.

[jeffd]

klinux, Backing up IS redundancy. And using hard drives is just a faster more expensive backing up then dvd's and tape drives.

With a rig setup in raid, you would have 2 (or 4) hard drives mirroring eachother, so if ANY data got corrupted, or a hard drive died, you would know it asap and beable ot fix it, without losing data. With just one hard drive like this network drive, once data is bad, it is non-recoverable.

Btw when I say raid here, I mean the backup unit itself is Raid. The person clearly wants to locate his backup data in a saf-ER place then his computer. While one hard drive in a safe is somewhat sufficent, setting up a RAID in a safe, purly for acting as a secondary file server (this raid will not mirror the persons main pc drive, it is mearly mirroring the backed up data it is safe keeping) is better.

[Crocuta]

It's seriously cool that he figured this all out and got it working, but the cost is outrageous. In addition, I have serious concerns about the reliability of his HDD inside a safe with no air flow to keep it cool. I would approach it differently. Most of us work outside the home and have broadband at both work and home. Rather than spend a couple of grand on this complex (and heavy!) set up, I'd install an NAS at work and backup straight to it from home. Total cost, $200-$400 depending on the size of the disc in the NAS. Then I'd have all of my data in two physical locations. If my home burns down, I don't have to depend on a safe to keep my data intact and if either HDD fails, everything's on the other. I don't see how he's any safer than that despite spending ten times the money.

[jeffd]

His work seems to BE home.. hes a photographer. So there is no backing up from work to home for him. The heat of a NAS drive would probably be minimal. Aside from the time needed to copy the new and altered files to the drive, the drive will be asleep for the most part.

And yea the raid setup above would either need a pc rig (you could sacrifice air cooling for water and just worry about getting 2 hoses through the safe housing) or a mucho expensive raid backup device (like a rack mount) designed for corperate installations.

Still.. I prefer dvd. ;)

[SteveBu]

So, I'm the author of the article on NetworkGarage.com. I posted an update at http://www.networkgarage.com/2005/10/updated_fireproof_safe_backup.html if anyone is interested. In practice, the hard disks don't generate much heat. I measured the internal temperature of the safe for a month and it never got above 75 degrees in our air conditioned house. As to mirroring the hard drive I could have done that too. The Linksys NSLU2 supports mirroring from one drive to another. I decided that the extra heat in the safe wasn't worth it. It's a disaster recovery solution with the master files being on my computers. Every couple of months I take the NAS device to work and copy the contents to a server I have there. It's a pain but one more level of protection.

I tried the DVD burning method but I found I was too busy to do it routinely. One of the things we're working on at Pure Networks http://www.purenetworks.com is a peer backup solution using Network Magic http://www.networkmagic.com and our Net2Go service.