What is cold storage and what are the benefits?

Cold Storage is referred to storing data that will not be accessed anytime soon. The keyword here is “anytime soon” as cold storage drives are meant to be offsite backups of important data. Learn about the benefits of cold storage and best way to go about having your own.

What are the benefits of Cold Storage?

1. All the data backed up in a hard drive for cold storage remains untouched and uncorrupted from digital forces. These drives are not connected to the internet so the chances of them being wiped by rogue viruses are slim to none.
2. Cold storage drives offers massive storage space for cheap pricing if user opts to go with the mechanical hard drives.
3. Cold storage drives can be stored offsite to provide a better peace of mind. Worried about your drive being in danger due to a potential fire or burglary? Cold storage is the way to go!

---

What type of hard drive is perfect for cold storage?

We recommend going with the traditional Hard Disc Drives (HDDs) and here are the reasons why:

1. Traditional Hard Disc Drives (HDDs) can be stored for years without needing to be plugged into a power source. Unlike, Solid State Drives (SSDs), which require some sort of power source every once in a while to keep the cells alive.
2. HDDs are much cheaper than any of the other small form factor storage drives. They offer the best value when compared by price to storage space.
3. HDDs can be purchased in all different types of form factors. You can purchase an external drive that can be easily plugged into your computer. You can also just purchase an internal Hard Drive, plug it into your computer to backup data then pull it out.

---

What are some data that should be stored in a cold storage hard drive? We recommend storying anything you believe to be timeless in cold storage. Here is a list of data that we highly recommend gets stored in offsite cold storage to be preserved for the future.

1. Wedding photos and pictures.
   
2. Kids birthday pictures and videos.
3. Home mortgage information, title, etc.
4. Company information such as tax documents, revenue documents, employee information, etc.

Cold Storage is losing some popularity due to the rise of Cloud Storage. However, it still remains an ideal backup solution for those wanting to store their data offsite. Cold storage tends to be safer from potential hackers and viruses.

Finally, we recommend the following Hard Drives for cold storage:

Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 256MB Cache 3.5-Inch Compatible Devices Desktop Brand Seagate Digital Storage Capacity 2 TB Hardware Interface SATA 6.0 Gb/s Type of product 3.5-Inch

Seagate Portable 5TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 Compatible Devices Laptop Brand Seagate Digital Storage Capacity 5 TB Hardware Interface USB 3.0 Type A Read Speed 120 Megabytes Per Second

Western Digital 4TB WD Red NAS Internal Hard Drive – 5400 RPM Class, SATA 6 Gb/s, SMR, 256MB Cache, 3.5″ Compatible Devices Desktop Brand Western Digital Digital Storage Capacity 4 TB Hardware Interface SATA 6.0 Gb/s Type of product 2.5 in|3.5 in