Data Safe

by turboboost17

3.3K139

Intro: Data Safe

The fastest and possible most secure back-up drive. Take one safe, one UPS, a gigabit NAS enclosure with a RAID 1 configuration and there you have it.

Fast with minimum security risk, protected in case of fire and instantly accessible. I've got an uptime of 136 days and counting with no overheating and gigabit rates, with all that your data can just live safely on the network.

Another option if backing up over the net doesn't fit your needs.

9 Comments

dvdweide 13 years ago

Thanks for this great idea!
I also own a data safe, and would be interested in a solution like this.

But are you sure you don't have heath problems?
I mean, did you hang a thermometer in there to check out?
Did you measure the power consumption of the NAS device inside?

I ask this because my safe is really REALLY very well isolated. After all, that's the main scope of a data safe, isn't it?
From the picture it seems that your safe is somewhat less isolated than mine, but it may be bigger than i think. Mine has 10cm of isolation on all sides.

turboboost17 8 years ago

Thanks for the comment, here's an update.

It's been 6 years and I've had up times of over 500 days, no thermal shutdowns, no drive failures. Wooohoo! :)

turboboost17 11 years ago

I haven't hung a thermometer, but the front display shows the temp and it never gets much above 100C, which is within a degree or two of what it is with the safe wide open. It's been 3 years now with no thermal shut downs ever. My record for up-time is 236 days and that's because we lost power for 4 hours in the winter and the UPS couldn't stay alive.

What helps is that the NAS power supply is OUTSIDE the safe, so the only heat is from the CPU and drives themselves.

I recently upgraded to two 3TB drive in RAID 1, I hope this crash plan lasts another 5 or 10 years.

muddog15 10 years ago

I would consider in the future working out some kind of Water cooling heat sink that covers all sides of the safe "Except the door" to where you can put a thermometer to turn on the pump at about 50 Celcius.

tinker234 12 years ago

wow i love it though i would make a bigger verison

turboboost17 11 years ago

I added a 1gigabit compliant surge suppressor to the Ethernet to protect against lightning as well.

Even with all that I'm looking into off-site back-up because even all that could fail.

I might just back-up to CD-R gold as permanent archive for pictures, that's the only digital format on the planet that can last 400 years without corruption.

mightywombat 13 years ago

This is a cool idea, but I have to tell you, in my experience working in the lock and safe industry, these "safes" are little more than fire-protected lock boxes. They are notoriously easy to open using a variety of techniques. This is a great way to protect your NAS from prying visitors, and from the possibility of fire damage, but these safes do not adequately protect from burglary or theft.

turboboost17 13 years ago

It's just for limited fire protection of our family's data, all our pictures, home video, tax returns, etc. A guy at work had a fire and their family lost all the family photos.

This safe isn’t even bolted to the ground, because I’m using those holes to run the cables, so there’s no real deterrent, you could just walk out with it.

Thanks for the heads up.