Fire and Heatproof Media safes, what have you got?

[pete]

This would be for storing tapes, cds and ideally paper "this bit goes there" docs for rebuilding from scratch.

 

Roughly a folder of A4, up to 20 LT02 (or equivalent capacity) tapes and 40 CDs or so - essentially the means to rebuild the network on new hardware and restore the data.

 

Any recommendations?

Edited September 24, 2008 by pete

[plexer]

Phoenix data safe range.

 

Ben

[dhicks]

Any recommendations?

 

Well, we have a "Datacare 2000 series" safe. I have no idea if it works (i.e. should the place catch fire, does our data stay safe?), and have no wish to find out. Just from the point of view of it being a square, heavy item, you might want to bear in mind where it'll be placed - upstairs might be a problem. Also, you can get some rather snazzy fireproof filing cabinets these days. They're typically sold as document-rated for the whole filing cabinet, then you buy an insert which turns one of the drawers into a data-rated fireproof section. One of those might fit in a bit better.

 

--

David Hicks

[BaccyNet]

The only safe I know of in this building is one in the finance managers office. We're not lucky enough to have one

[witch]

Nothing

Nada

Zip

[DMcCoy]

Isn't the issue that fireproof safes are like "waterproof" watches? They are rated for a certain temp for a certain time, you also need to look very closely at what temperatues it is expected to reach inside and wheather or not this is going to render your carefully taken backup media completely useless.

 

Mine go off site

[FN-GM]

a live offsite backup will be a better solution.

[DMcCoy]

Even an offline one would be good, although I will be moving to Backup Exec 12.5 soon to make sure tapes are encrypted. It's not like we lose millions of pounds an hour when it's not on Edited September 25, 2008 by DMcCoy
Typo

[theriver]

Apologies if you already know this, but you'll need an offsite backup too, as FN-GM says.

 

If there's been a serious fire, it's likely to be quite some time before you can access the burnt-out wreck of a building to retrieve all your stuff - assuming it's ever safe to do so.

[pete]

We have a weekly offsite backup but it doesn't really fall within DP guidance (tapes are encrypted but a locked suitcase chained into the bottom of a spare wardrobe probably doesn't qualify as "secure location").

 

Live offsite backup isn't feasible (though incrementals *might* work) due to bandwidth atm. County have floated a "would you be interested in offsite backup?", but until we get a 100MB pipe it would take too long.

 

The safe would be in a remote building on the site (so a fire would either take out that building or the main school buildings - in either case we're fine).

[Sirbendy]

We're lucky ATM- the entire LA is all fibre linked, every school, every public building etc. We're replicated around 3 sites and civic offices server farm.

 

Even if we got nuked, the data would be fine.

 

In the new academy site, we've specced up identical servers for our "on site but seperate building" training centre as for the main school, and we'll be running fibre between the 2 and duplicating them nightly. Unless the entire site gets flattened, we should be able to run even after a fire in one building.

 

We'll also have a data safe etc, and I intend to get a hefty disk for off site backup at my place, just for the additional peace of mind.

[Oops_my_bad]

We couldnt get insured until we could prove we have our tapes in a secure location away from the main building with servers etc..

[imiddleton25]

The safe must be water proof as well as fireproof as water damage can be more than the fire its self. Fire brigade use thousands of gallons of water and a back up tape under water is not going to be very good.

[sidewinder]

We've got one of these

 

Secureline Secure Data Cabinets

 

Ours is the SL-SDA45E. Huge extremely heavy safe that looks like it could survive nuclear war. 2 hours fire protection

 

Its located in another building approx 50 metres from the main building and server room - not perfect but the chance of both buildings being destroyed is extremely low