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.