Rotating offsite backup to a safety deposit box?

[neiler0847]

I keep backups in my house, but it has been years since I had an off-site backup strategy. I've been thinking along the lines of having two drives that I alternately rotate in and out of my safety deposit box, perhaps every 4-6 months..

My safety deposit box is pretty small, so I'm thinking that a 2.5" form factor is as big as I could go. If I backup my data, photos and music I'm currently looking at about 300 GB. Video media is another story (1.5TB), and out-of-scope for this use-case I think.

SSD

• 
  ■ a 500 GB SSD is $200 CDN
  ■ NAND has an 8-10 year lifespan I think?
  ■ would rewriting the data every 4-6 months be enough to recharge the NAND?
  ■ is SSD inherently more stable than HDD?

HDD

• 
  ■ a 1 TB laptop HDD is $65 CDN
  ■ the media has a theoretically very long lifespan as long as you refresh it from time to time
  ■ I've pulled used 3.5" HDDs out of the cupboard after years, and when I throw them into a machine they are just fine
  ■ being mechanical, I expect they are more likely to seize up after long periods without use?

And what about bank vaults? Any reason to expect that this is not a stable enough environment in which to store either media? humidity? magnetic field? Would you use an anti-static bag?

Thoughts?

 

[rchris]

I've read that SSDs (and USB thumb drives) need a recharge at about 1 year, so your 4-6 month cycle should be good.
I use a laptop HDD in my bank lockbox. Update it about every year. I haven't worried about anti-static bags, and the environment is probably cooler than my house overall.

 

[USAFRet]

A bank vault is fine, even a bit of overkill.

I have my 'offsite drive' (2TB HDD) sitting in a desk drawer at work.
Bring it home every few weeks to copy new stuff over.

 

[ArtPog]

We are aware of a number of PC users (small business owners for the most part, but also some home users as well) who have stored HDDs (nearly all of them cloned copies of their on-site drives) in their safety deposit boxes for various lengths of time - some extending to a number of years. Not to say it hasn't happened, but I'm not aware of a single instance that has come to my attention that a drive's data has become corrupt or the drive has become defective because of the storage facility's environment even after being stored for a number of years.

I'm not specifically aware of users storing SSDs (or USB flash drives) under those circumstances, but I'm reasonably certain those devices are probably also stored in a sd box. I'm guessing that for the most part the drives are either 2.5" or 3.5" HDDs.

 

[neiler0847]

A bank vault is fine, even a bit of overkill.

I have my 'offsite drive' (2TB HDD) sitting in a desk drawer at work.
Bring it home every few weeks to copy new stuff over.

I have also done this in the past. I work in a corporate cubicle environment though, which means that

■ you never know how many keys there are to match the lock on your desk
■ you never know when you might get restructured out the door and never see your desk again

 

[USAFRet]

A bank vault is fine, even a bit of overkill.

I have my 'offsite drive' (2TB HDD) sitting in a desk drawer at work.
Bring it home every few weeks to copy new stuff over.

I have also done this in the past. I work in a corporate cubicle environment though, which means that

■ you never know how many keys there are to match the lock on your desk
■ you never know when you might get restructured out the door and never see your desk again

This is true.
If I worked in a different office, or for a different employer....my procedure may be different.
Where I am currently, it works for me.