[lug] Backup

[Timothy Klein]

On 22 Dec 2005, at 2:54 PM, Matt Thompson wrote:

> On Thu, 2005-12-22 at 14:46 -0700, George Sexton wrote:
>> I bought it used from a local safe company. At the time, it was  
>> called Pike
>> Safe. As I recall, it was $1,900 delivered.
>>
>> The exterior dimensions are something like 29 inches wide, 28  
>> inches deep,
>> and 58 inches tall. Internal dimensions are something like 18*16*42
>
> Hah, there is a media safe on eBay for less than $8:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/aax36
>
> And it's made of the "Finast Plastic on the market".

They actually did a test of three cheap fire safes, ranging from $30  
to $80 dollars, on the local news recently.  The fire department did  
the tests, and lit fires at the temperature a house would burn at,  
for 15 or 20 minutes or something.

All three were destroyed, but all three worked.  Indeed, the media  
inside (CD, DVD, and a floppy, I believe) were fine.  The paper  
inside was water damaged in the most expensive version. The cheapest  
safe protected the best, ironically.

You don't need to spend $2000 on a two-ton block of steel to keep a  
couple of DVDs safe from the kinds of fires likely to damage your  
home.  I'm not sure how a hard drive stored in such a safe would do,  
but I suspect it'd be OK, too.  If your house goes up in a phenomenal  
blaze, spurred on by an accelerant, and the fire department does not  
get there for an hour, you might have problems with the cheap safes,  
but really, how likely is that?

Most fires cause mostly smoke damage, and unless your computers are  
in the kitchen, there's a good chance that's the only thing your safe  
would need to protect against.

Tim