In my previous blog post I talked about how I bought a Blu-ray drive and a couple of M-Discs to use it for long-term archival backups.
Shortly after that I had the idea to use these as a last-resort, decentralized backup.
The Concept
Many people give copies of their house or apartment keys to good and trusted friends in case they lose their keys or someone needs access to the apartment when they are out of town, maybe just to water the flowers and check the mailbox or maybe in a case of emergency, whatever that might be.
Once I started burning my first Blu-rays I was thinking about what my core essential data is that I never ever want to lose. We all know people who have lost important data because they didn’t have proper backups and while having at least one backup is better than none, it’s still risky if that one backup drive lives in the same place as your main computer. In case of a catastrophic fire for example, both the computer and backup drive could be destroyed.
Insert your own worst-case scenario here. Think about what would have to happen to lose all your data or at least the data you care about the most. I know many people for whom those scenarios aren’t all that unlikely or complicated.
After contemplating all these things I thought it would be cool to get 2-3 small cases, put 3-4 Bu-Rays in each of them, pad them with foam, seal them and then give them to a few good and trusted friends. Then after maybe 1-3 years I’d replace them and make a nice little handover ceremony each cycle where I’d check whether the seal was broken and only when the old case is pristine, the new case would be handed over.
The Data
I’ll keep this section short and slightly vague because it will be different for other people what they consider essential but for me it consists of:
- All kinds of documents which I have digitized and organized with the help paperless-ngx
- My music collection which contains various gems that I never want to lose
- My photo library, not every screenshot and snapshot but albums of trips and events that I want to keep forever
- Essential things I would need if I had to reboot my digital life from scratch ie. blank computer and no access to any other backups or computers I own
As for right now I can fit all of this on 3 Blu-ray M-Discs and of course the most critical data is zipped and password protected.
Whether you want to include the password to unlock the data in the sealed box is up to you, but if you do, it can also serve as your digital legacy in case of death. It’s not uncommon that relatives of people who pass away have serious problems cancelling subscriptions and deleting accounts because they don’t know the passwords of the person who died. I’ll leave that as food for thought.
The Box
With the concept in my head and the first Blu-rays burnt it was time to find a vessel. I thought immediately about something in the style of Peli cases. Able to withstand a reasonable amount of physical tribulations, keeping out moisture and dust and still small enough that they are not a burden for the receiving custodians.
Luckily it wasn’t hard to find. I chose the B&W Outdoor Case Type 500 which was 33,74€ at the time of purchase.
It is big enough for up to 5, maybe 6 Blu-ray jewel cases, has proper solid latches, two holes for zip-ties or seals and a carry handle. The only downside are the overabundant logos the manufacturer put everywhere but I can live with that.
The Foam
As mentioned before, I don’t want the jewel cases to rattle around in the box. I wanted them to be at least padded so that they would survive in case somebody drop it or throw it around.
I was considering something like shadow foam which all the tool people use to make their tool drawers look all fancy and organized but I went with some generic PE Foam which – and that is the important part – does not get sticky or degrade in other ways over time. I bought a roll which is 1cm thick so I can cut and layer it how I see fit. I might try something like the shadow / tool foam for later iterations but I got option paralysis looking at the various offerings.
The Label
The box also needed a proper label. The box has an area for a label on the front but unfortunately they are not selling matching label stickers. So following the Mythbusters motto of “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing” I designed my own label stickers and sent them to a sticker printer. They look like this:
The Seal
Of course I could’ve just used two zip ties to «seal» the box but they can be replaced easily if you cut them to open the box. Especially after a few years I wouldn’t know if the zip tie is still pristine and original. Instead I wanted a proper seal which would tell you upon visual inspection if it was tampered with.
Again this was surprisingly easy to achieve. There are many variants to choose from. In the end I went with a plastic seal which has a serial number and barcode on it and which can only be opened by breaking it. Regular zip ties can be opened with a small screw driver for example.
Can this not be reproduced by crafty and sophisticated people you may ask? I’m sure it can and if your personal paranoia level does not allow for that scenario then don’t give the password to the custodian of your backup.
My scenario is that I will seal it as described, label it, take a picture, particularly of the seal (with barcode and number) and I will inspect and compare whenever I refresh the backup. That is good enough for me and the security scheme that I came up with, which I’m not fully disclosing – get creative 🙂
However it is worthwhile to consider what data to put inside the boxes, what you don’t want to lose and what data is ok to be accessed by other, trusted people. Not just for this scenario.
Candy
Yes … I also put in a selica gel bag for extra moisture protection / detection. The ones that are orange when dry and green when wet. Are they necessary? No – but if it’s worth doing … 🙂
The Materials
(links to German stores but I’m sure you’ll find equivalents in case you need to)
- Case: B&W outdoor.case Type 500
- Foam: Adam Hall 019310 B Plastazote LD29 PE-Schaumstoff 10 mm
- Seals: https://www.plomben.de/plombenarten/durchziehplomben/
- Labels printed at: https://www.stickma.de
If you’re like me you might enjoy browsing the shops where I got the foam and seals. I learned about many interesting products for future projects!
The Name
Holocron is somewhat fitting as it is an optical storage medium and its definition is fitting as well:
Holocrons were information-storage devices used by both the Jedi Order and the Sith that contained ancient lessons or valuable information in holographic form. They appeared as palm-sized, glowing polyhedrons of crystalline material and hardware, and could only be activated and used through the power of the Force.
Ideas For Improvement / Your own versions
If you have suggestions for improvement or you make your own versions, please let me know! I’m curious where this takes your creativity!
MDISK today is simply marketing hype. Verbatim watered the chow down… finally aligning the product with standard BD dye layers in 2022.
Do you happen to have a credible source for this? I came across similar un-sourced claims and for the time being I’ll consider it possible but not confirmed. Either way – I’m not intending to rely on it surviving 25 years. It just needs to make it 1-3 years until I cycle the boxes.
There was a lot posted on reddit at the time on DataHoarders, and a few other places.
If I recall correctly the validation came from an official response from Verbatim responding to a German tech magazine investigation on the MediaID changes.
Here’s the link:
https://www.heise.de/news/Langzeitarchivierung-Verwirrung-um-die-M-Disc-7349953.html
Langzeitarchivierung: Verwirrung um veränderte M-Discs von Verbatim” (Long-term archiving: Confusion over modified M-Discs from Verbatim)
I used to use DVDs for long-time backup purposes. I used TrueCrypt (now: VeraCrypt) to create an encrypted volume that matched the size of the DVDs (a volume is basically a disk file containing a full file system of your choice).
You may want to encrypt everything using VeraCrypt so that you can safely let a box of archival Blu-Ray discs stay at a friend’s place in case your home catches fire or a burglary happens. The encryption mostly ensures that nobody meddles with your data so that they cannot inspect and/or modify it. This ensures privacy but more importantly that nobody accidentally deletes your favorite songs while messing around with your data.
My most critical data, a VeraCrypt container of 5 gigabytes in size, contains all my source code, my diaries, etc., etc. and is stored in cloud storage. I use Dropbox because it works on Windows, Linux, and Macs.
The passwords for the VeraCrypt volumes are 128 characters long and are stored in a secure KeePassXC database (KeePassXC is a password manager), which is stored in Dropbox too.
I have contemplated buying a Blu-Ray drive and use M-Discs but I have lots of data that I want backed up. So I ended up using a 5 TB VeraCrypt encrypted harddisk, which I normally have a friend store at his place so that I can recover easily in case of fire or burglary.
I’ve only encrypted my “Documents” disc and wen’t with a tarball into an openssl blockcipher, assuming openssl being more universal and legacy supportive. However in my case this is not intended to be super ultra secure. At least one friend also has access to the passphrase to de-crypt everything as I’m kind of co-using it as a digital legacy in case of unexpected death.
I made one of these that I have a 2.5″ enclosed USB 3.0 hard drive in.
It’s a steel .50 Cal ammo box, lined on all sides with 2 layers of sheetrock glued in with fireblock sealant.
Inside the sheetrock, then I have foam to protect from impact.
On the outside of the ammo can, I put white reflective tape.
My goal wasn’t so much to make it portable, but to make sure it survived any disaster. Although the ammo can does have its own handle, it is probably about 8-10 lbs.
It should survive a fire, a tornado, being dropped or smashed. It should also survive water because the ammo can has a rubber seal. The metal outside is also a faraday cage.
Should my house ever get destroyed by a tornado, this box should be easy to locate with it white reflective tape.
Specifically chose white to be the most visible, and white meaning: not hazardous.
So my layers are:
Reflective tape – identification and locating in darkness / disaster area
Steel box – radiation, magnetism, and physical force
Sheetrock (gypsum) – fireproofing and heat resistance
Foam – physical shock and drops
Ouh I’d love to see pictures of it – but you probably don’t want me to see it 😀 But it sounds also very interesting!
I once used CDR disks as backup. They sat in plastic boxes inside a larger cardboard box inside and underground garage. When I tested the disks five years later many were not readable.
Interesting – my experience is somewhat different. Most CD-Rs that I have for at least 10 years are still readable. I think I only cared about a handful and if I remember correctly they all read out ok. But I should maybe try all of them to get a better idea if there are complete failures and if so if they are obvious differences in brand etc. In my case I don’t even rely on the disks surviving for that long. I will cycle the boxes somewhere in the range of 1-5 years I think. But I’ll definitely report back once I do the first cycle.
Depending on the CD-R dye some last longer than others. UV degradation plays a significant role as well.
Biggest issues in data hoarding are bitrot, mechanical failure and cost.
Depending on where you are located, bits can get flipped on a more or less likely basis [equator is the worst]; ruins your day with encrypted data (where bit flips cascade data corruption to the block level).
Any serious hoarder lays out the drive so they only keep the mutable important stuff, has several copies (3-2-1), and each copy contains forward error corrective coding (usenet people would recognize this as par files though there are much better modern alternatives now).