[diggeryo]

Does anyone know what the maximum temperature is that an external hard drive can withstand? (not at which it operates, but an external temperature it can withstand.)

the reason...

I bought an external hard drive (Western Digital My Book, 160 gigs: http://www.wdc.com/e...mp;language=en) with the intention of backing up my data once a week and storing the hard drive in a fire safe for the remainder of the time in case of fire.

I was reading through the manual for my safe the other day, and it said it protects the contents by making sure the inerior doesn't raise to above 350 degrees in case of fire. This got me thinking: the papers I have in there would be ok at that temperature, but would my credit cards and backup hard drive be ok? Wouldn't they melt?

I read over the hard drive manual and even called the support number, but no one could give me the maximum temperature that the external hard drive could withstand. The only temperature numbers I could get were its operating temperatures.

Any help or advice is appreicated...

thanks,
mike.

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The answer to this in a nutshell is, nobody knows for sure.

In theory, since you know pieces of A4 will survive in your safe at that temperature, then as that stuff is easy to burn anyway, it would go without saying that the HDD and credit cards should also survive. But I'm not heating anything up to 350 degrees to test this theory

[Neil Jones]

The answer to this in a nutshell is, nobody knows for sure.

In theory, since you know pieces of A4 will survive in your safe at that temperature, then as that stuff is easy to burn anyway, it would go without saying that the HDD and credit cards should also survive. But I'm not heating anything up to 350 degrees to test this theory