What is the Best Solution for Storing Hard Drives?

hey everyone,

I have got a couple of Samsung HD501LJ 's 500 gb internal sataII hard drives that I am using to store all of my OLD family videos and pictures. So, obviously this stuff is valuable to me and my family and we want to make sure they are protected and maintained.

What is the best way or method to store these 2 drives?

--I was thinking just put them back in to the plastic case and bubble wrap that they came in. Then, put them in a fire safe box for long term storage.
The drives will only be taken out of the firesafe box and their package every couple of months or so. At which time, new photos or videos will be added to the drives.

Is this a good method for storage? Or is there a better way to store the drives?

Please give me any suggestions you may have for ensuring that long functioning life of these hard drives.



PS- At some point in the future, when Hard Drives, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or Flash drives become really really cheap, I will copy these drives to one of those types of storage, because I know at some point, these 2 HDDs that I have will break on me.


THANKS!

Unlike floppy drives....hard drives do not generally fail from lack of use.
I have some SCSI drives that were stored in a storage closet for over 12 years, and they function now, just as they did. The inside of hard drives will remain clean as long as there are no radical changes in temperature where condensation can form as they are factory sealed.

To answer your question directly...the fire safe box should be adequate.

I would suggest making a second copy of your files onto DVD media. It's fairly inexpensive and the discs aren't susceptible to vibrations, static, moisture, etc. It's best to spread the risk out across multiple mediums.

I wouldn't trust storing that much of irreplaceable data in a single device. Even if you store it most of the time, maybe it has some defect from the factory that is just waiting to break.

You also might look into hosted storage for your files.

USB enclosures would give an added benefit of a little shock absorbtion
as well - a bare drive should be handled a little more carefully than one
in a plastic housing.