Back to the drawing board (yes, again...)

Here's another tid-bit of information gleaned from my wanderings on the internet in search of a disaster proof solution to my data storage.

The safe I was looking at was more a Gun Safe.  And as such would protect Guns and seems like even paper from burning in a severe house fire.

However, looking at the hardware specs for the NAS I had designed it seems like the max survivable temperature for when the thing is off, is around 150 F.

If you look up the specifications for UL-72, you'll see that there's 3 classes for devices by their ability to maintain the class temperature (in F).  Then a time is added to specify the period of time for which that temperature can be maintained in a fire-like environment: 1/2 hour, and 1 or 2 hours.

350 - Mostly for protecting paper documents and valuables such as jewelry and guns
150 - Electronics, CD's, DVD's, etc.
125 - magnetic media, such as tapes, and (*ghasp*) floppy disks (and if you keep the latter, you may want to keep a floppy drive in with it too since those are getting hard to find.)

So what I discovered I was really looking for is a UL-72 Listed Class 150 1 hour Safe with built in power and ethernet.  It became clear by looking at the specification of the Cannon Home Guard H8 (and most of their safes really) that they're not sufficient to keep the NAS protected during a fire.  It's not waterproof either.  And any safe that would be listed UL-72 Class 150, wouldn't likely have a AC power/ethernet/USB penetration through the case (trust me I looked).  And Media Safes that are Listed as such are expensive (for good reason!)  That being said, I find the inclusion of the connectivity feature on of the safe I was looking at somewhat misleading, since the connectivity feature is obviously for electronics, but the safe itself won't protect them.

As an alternative, I was able to find this:
IOSafe N2
But it wont' be available until January of 2013.

But here's a video of another one of their products being tortured. And then the data being recovered.  Pretty impressive!

The N2 can be bolted to the floor and has a keyed faceplate so you can't just open it and take the drives.  It also has the fire protection I need in addition to being waterproof.  Though it's not listed by UL, it was instead tested to ASTM E119.  On that note, as a member of ASTM I was able to look that up:  it's a construction materials fire resistance test.  There's details for testing steel I-beams used in construction of buildings, and not much for preserving your stored electronic data like the UL standard.  However, when you purchase an N2 with the drives provided by IOSafe, you get a pretty decent warranty that makes up for not being UL listed against the -72 spec:  if they can't just swap your drive into another IOSafe N2, they'll cover up to either $2500 or $5000 for forensic data recovery (this just means they'll take the drive platters out of the drive and put them in another...this is an expensive process since it requires a very controlled environment to accomplish.)  So for the price, it's a pretty sweet deal.  My only concern is that you can extend the warranty to 5 years only.  After that, you're on your own or must purchase a new one.  I would think a 10 year warranty would be more appropriate for what is being advertised and sold for the cost.

Expensive, but promising.  And honestly for the size of storage I was considering in addition to the safe, I think if I got the N2, and a significangly less expensive document safe, it'd be the same price as what I was considering before.  So here I am.  Undecided.  Though I really liked the mini NAS I designed.

Buyer Beware

With the upcoming release of Windows 8 (I guess tomorrow, actually) I wanted to post a few things I've discovered while trying to install it.

I had downloaded the Consumer Preview and tried to install it on one of my old PC's:  the hardware requirements being a meager 1 GHz Processor, 1 Gigabyte of Ram, a DX9 video card.  All of which this old PC of mine had.  So I thought I would install it and see how I like it before committing my desktop and netbook to the new OS.

However, I kept getting an error every time I tried to install it.

Hunting around the internet for the error code lead me to what should have been an asterisk on that 1 GHz Processor requirement:  it must support for PAE, NX, and SSE2.  My XP Athalon 3000+ doesn't meet this requirement.  So just beware.

Also, there's plenty of articles on the difference between Windows 8 RT and Windows 8/Pro:  RT being designed for ARM processors (and therefore geared more for tablets.)  It isn't the full version of windows 8 that the other two (Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro) are.  I would compare RT to Windows 7 Basic that was available on netbooks, while the others are more featured and capable (remote desktop for instance).  So, just beware and make sure you get what you really want, and don't waste money trying to upgrade if your processor is too old.

Back to the drawing board

Being an engineer, let's be honest:  I'm cheap.  So, in waiting for prices to come down to pre-flooding prices, my home was unfortunately broken into.  Yeah, that sucked.  Fortunately for me, it was a smash and grab and whoever did it made off with my Xbox  and then a bunch of stuff out of my master bedroom.  My computers (which were in the basement) were left behind.

But the experience reaffirmed in my mind the need to get my NAS up and running as a back up for all our family memories that I have saved as pictures and video, my important documents, and the like.  But even just having a NAS wasn't enough for me.

After the break in, my mind has been playing all sorts of worst case scenarios of what could possibly happen to my data.  And I've finally come up with a plan:

First, I'm aggressively liquidating all my extra hardware and computers to raise some capital.

Then I'm ordering a low power pico x86 computer, with an extra hard drive bracket.

I've got some 2 GB laptop ram from when I removed it and put 4 GB in my netbook (which also wasn't miraculously stolen).  Then I'll order two 2.5" 2TB hard drives and a 4GB usb flash drive for the Freenas OS.  All that will constitute my low power 2TB software raid NAS.  Why not more power?  Or use the stuff I already have?

So I can put it in this:  Cannon H8 Safe with AC Power outlet, ethernet, and USB.

It has to be low power so not to burn itself up with it's own heat inside the safe.  So far between the processor and the two hard drives, max TDP (Total Dissipated Power) comes to around 14W max.  I imagine most of the time it won't be that high.  Cannon sells a safe dehumidifier that runs 8 watts.  I figure my NAS could run as a safe dehumidifier too.

Then, once I get my SSD and install windows, I'll put my windows 7 User Accounts on the NAS* which will be in the safe.  (If the information in that link works for mapped network drives...still have to determine that.)  So that way if my computer ever disappears, I'm only missing the hardware and installed software.  None of my personal information goes with it.  If my house ever burns down...I'll still have my data.  

Now to come up with $1350.  Which sounds like a lot.  The safe ($750) will last a lifetime.  As for the $600  NAS, it seems like a lot.  But if it works for 10 years, then hey, that's only $5 a month.  I don't know of any safe deposit boxes the size of this safe for that price, and you would still have to go and get your backup drive from it on a regular basis.  (And I've yet to find safe deposit boxes with an internet connection...and I'm sure if I did, it would be much more than $5 a month).  And I can't put my extra car keys and passport on the cloud, nor find 2TB of storage that cheap (and I don't want my data there anyway).  This is the best of both worlds.

*Update:  I've since posted to the tutorial in the SevenForums asking if it's possible to move these folders to a mapped network drive.  The author of the tutorial discourages it.  However, I may move what I can out of my user folder to the NAS through libraries and the programs that store stuff in the Users folder.  We shall see.