the data are registered in a magnetic tape? I am asking this because I remember something like this...
also floppy are so "delicate" if you have a little damage on your plastic case you lost all information ... and find a way to fix it is quite impossible...
Topic: Are floppy disks safe to store wallets? - page 5. (Read 6464 times)
Maybe. But think about the compatibility. Floppy disk readers are already incompatible with Windows, and you need a 3rd party program to read it. In a few years, those applications will not be updated.
Maybe tattoo your private key to yourself 
As anecdotal evidence goes...
Just couple months ago I found myself experimenting with old floppies from 20 to 30 years ago.
A bunch of 880KB Amiga single density ones, and both 1.44MB PC high density and 720KB turned 1.44MB via hole punching. Some of well known brands, some with no branding at all.
I had no problems reading a complete image out of each floppy I tried, with an Hitachi USB floppy drive from 10 years ago. I was kinda suprised.
Again, I don't recommend actually using floppy nowadays to store things (it's also most impractical), but they worked far better than I expected.
Old, cheap burned CD-Rs, on the other hands... a real bloodbath!
Just couple months ago I found myself experimenting with old floppies from 20 to 30 years ago.
A bunch of 880KB Amiga single density ones, and both 1.44MB PC high density and 720KB turned 1.44MB via hole punching. Some of well known brands, some with no branding at all.
I had no problems reading a complete image out of each floppy I tried, with an Hitachi USB floppy drive from 10 years ago. I was kinda suprised.
Again, I don't recommend actually using floppy nowadays to store things (it's also most impractical), but they worked far better than I expected.
Old, cheap burned CD-Rs, on the other hands... a real bloodbath!
I was doing some cleaning on my room and I found some floppy disks, they are around 15 years old! from the Sony brand. I don't have a floppy disk device anymore on my computer, so I used an older computer because I was curious to see if they would still work.
To my surprise, they worked and all the files were accessible.
This made me think that, you could store some Bitcoin related stuff in floppy disks too? Obviously having backups in other places too.. but floppy disks may be yet another cheap way to store files. If I put my seed key in a txt (compressed in a 7z file with a pass) and my wallet.dat file on that floppy disk, it would have lasted for 15 years. I hope that if I do this, in the next 15 years when I find the floppy disks again, I will be rich
To my surprise, they worked and all the files were accessible.
This made me think that, you could store some Bitcoin related stuff in floppy disks too? Obviously having backups in other places too.. but floppy disks may be yet another cheap way to store files. If I put my seed key in a txt (compressed in a 7z file with a pass) and my wallet.dat file on that floppy disk, it would have lasted for 15 years. I hope that if I do this, in the next 15 years when I find the floppy disks again, I will be rich
I think that the really problem is find an hardware that could read easily a floppy... they are literally disappeared a lot of young nerds don't know what are and how it was hard use a floppy for every operation.... I think you could save the passphrase wallet... maybe it's more sure as device space...
Indeed these kiddo's from now do not even know the name, they are thinking you are talking bullshit, they never heard from it.
I honestly think it can be safe.
...What do you consider "quantum proof encryption" to be tho??
Any well known and established symmetric algorithm (e.g. AES-256) is safe, considering key size of at least 256 bits.As far as I know.
I was doing some cleaning on my room and I found some floppy disks, they are around 15 years old! from the Sony brand. I don't have a floppy disk device anymore on my computer, so I used an older computer because I was curious to see if they would still work.
To my surprise, they worked and all the files were accessible.
This made me think that, you could store some Bitcoin related stuff in floppy disks too? Obviously having backups in other places too.. but floppy disks may be yet another cheap way to store files. If I put my seed key in a txt (compressed in a 7z file with a pass) and my wallet.dat file on that floppy disk, it would have lasted for 15 years. I hope that if I do this, in the next 15 years when I find the floppy disks again, I will be rich
To my surprise, they worked and all the files were accessible.
This made me think that, you could store some Bitcoin related stuff in floppy disks too? Obviously having backups in other places too.. but floppy disks may be yet another cheap way to store files. If I put my seed key in a txt (compressed in a 7z file with a pass) and my wallet.dat file on that floppy disk, it would have lasted for 15 years. I hope that if I do this, in the next 15 years when I find the floppy disks again, I will be rich
I think that the really problem is find an hardware that could read easily a floppy... they are literally disappeared a lot of young nerds don't know what are and how it was hard use a floppy for every operation.... I think you could save the passphrase wallet... maybe it's more sure as device space...
No because floppies are notoriously unreliable. You just got lucky with those particular disks.
Maybe that was the case, but all the IBM and Sony ones are working lol. And I have found an even older floppy (the ones that folded), I would like to try this one out but I don't have a reader for big floppy disks anymore, but im sure someone already made one that can connect to usb
Are floppy disks safe to store wallets?
No.There are way better alternatives nowadays. I'd consider CD, DVD, M-Disc, Cloud storage. Just make sure your wallet is encrypted with a strong password and with quantum proof encryption.
And always name your wallet files randomly, naming as "My Millionaire Bitcoin Wallet" is definitely not a good idea and will just encourage brute force attacks and attempts. Naming it as "travel_71nYNujPnL" would work otherwise.
Even binary data printed in sheets of paper and buried somewhere in this planet would be safer than a floppy.
Yes, I have backups everywhere and they are all encrypted. What do you consider "quantum proof encryption" to be tho??
Are floppy disks safe to store wallets?
No.There are way better alternatives nowadays. I'd consider CD, DVD, M-Disc, Cloud storage. Just make sure your wallet is encrypted with a strong password and with quantum proof encryption.
And always name your wallet files randomly, naming as "My Millionaire Bitcoin Wallet" is definitely not a good idea and will just encourage brute force attacks and attempts. Naming it as "travel_71nYNujPnL" would work otherwise.
Even binary data printed in sheets of paper and buried somewhere in this planet would be safer than a floppy.
.....
actually a piece of paper only lasts for a while, not forever. it is subjected to decay and based on the environment in which you are holding it this process can be speed up or slowed down. you can of course laminate the paper to prolong the life time of it.
but if you are looking for a permanent way of holding your private keys which doesn't involve electronic stuff, you should engrave it on something, the most common thing is a metal place which is resistance to corrosion.
Engraving onto metal may mean to use somebody else to do the engraving, hence you just hand out your private key to somebody.
Laminated paper wallets are not a bad solution actually. Nowadays people have printer at home and if you don't have the "laminator" (I don't know if it's actually called like this), you can buy the plastic and it may work with the clothing iron.
This is hilarious. Okay first I can guess how old are you now. Second I will say, a piece of paper last for ever, even exposed to a magnet.
actually a piece of paper only lasts for a while, not forever. it is subjected to decay and based on the environment in which you are holding it this process can be speed up or slowed down. you can of course laminate the paper to prolong the life time of it.
but if you are looking for a permanent way of holding your private keys which doesn't involve electronic stuff, you should engrave it on something, the most common thing is a metal place which is resistance to corrosion.
Engraving onto metal may mean to use somebody else to do the engraving, hence you just hand out your private key to somebody.
Laminated paper wallets are not a bad solution actually. Nowadays people have printer at home and if you don't have the "laminator" (I don't know if it's actually called like this), you can buy the plastic and it may work with the clothing iron.
you can always encrypt the key before engraving it.
also engraving on a metal doesn't necessarily need high tech equipment like laser or expensive machines. you only need a hammer and chisel
http://www.wikihow.com/Engrave
also there are tools that have letters on their head (like the picture below) which you use a hammer to indent the metal with that letter.
Wow! Awesome and great ideas here. I have never thought of the engraving thing but I can go with the laminator and maybe frame it.
I always had a hard time using floppy disks before. My files always got corrupted or my floppy disks got viruses. I would definitely not recommend it and it is not anymore useful in the present times.
Floppy disks are very old and you are lucky still to have them
yes its old device,i can't find my old flopy disk on my house,i forgot where i put it,and i think its not good idea to store wallets on floppy disk,its too old and you will hard to find old computer to open your floppy disk everywhere.
Floppy disks are very old and you are lucky still to have them
You were just lucky. They day you'll need it, they will be gone forever. If there aren't used anymore today, that's for a good reason.
I was doing some cleaning on my room and I found some floppy disks, they are around 15 years old! from the Sony brand. I don't have a floppy disk device anymore on my computer, so I used an older computer because I was curious to see if they would still work.
To my surprise, they worked and all the files were accessible.
This made me think that, you could store some Bitcoin related stuff in floppy disks too? Obviously having backups in other places too.. but floppy disks may be yet another cheap way to store files. If I put my seed key in a txt (compressed in a 7z file with a pass) and my wallet.dat file on that floppy disk, it would have lasted for 15 years. I hope that if I do this, in the next 15 years when I find the floppy disks again, I will be rich
To my surprise, they worked and all the files were accessible.
This made me think that, you could store some Bitcoin related stuff in floppy disks too? Obviously having backups in other places too.. but floppy disks may be yet another cheap way to store files. If I put my seed key in a txt (compressed in a 7z file with a pass) and my wallet.dat file on that floppy disk, it would have lasted for 15 years. I hope that if I do this, in the next 15 years when I find the floppy disks again, I will be rich
I think it's very safe compared to online wallet prone hack. But it is not safe if the diskect is damaged cartilage and because the technology is old,I feared no floppy disk in the future to open your discket.
hehe just my opinion
Never trust floppy disks, they can seem to work flawlessly but become suddenly unreadable when you need something you have stored on them. I learned the lesson the hard way back in the day.
.....
actually a piece of paper only lasts for a while, not forever. it is subjected to decay and based on the environment in which you are holding it this process can be speed up or slowed down. you can of course laminate the paper to prolong the life time of it.
but if you are looking for a permanent way of holding your private keys which doesn't involve electronic stuff, you should engrave it on something, the most common thing is a metal place which is resistance to corrosion.
Engraving onto metal may mean to use somebody else to do the engraving, hence you just hand out your private key to somebody.
Laminated paper wallets are not a bad solution actually. Nowadays people have printer at home and if you don't have the "laminator" (I don't know if it's actually called like this), you can buy the plastic and it may work with the clothing iron.
This is hilarious. Okay first I can guess how old are you now. Second I will say, a piece of paper last for ever, even exposed to a magnet.
actually a piece of paper only lasts for a while, not forever. it is subjected to decay and based on the environment in which you are holding it this process can be speed up or slowed down. you can of course laminate the paper to prolong the life time of it.
but if you are looking for a permanent way of holding your private keys which doesn't involve electronic stuff, you should engrave it on something, the most common thing is a metal place which is resistance to corrosion.
Engraving onto metal may mean to use somebody else to do the engraving, hence you just hand out your private key to somebody.
Laminated paper wallets are not a bad solution actually. Nowadays people have printer at home and if you don't have the "laminator" (I don't know if it's actually called like this), you can buy the plastic and it may work with the clothing iron.
you can always encrypt the key before engraving it.
also engraving on a metal doesn't necessarily need high tech equipment like laser or expensive machines. you only need a hammer and chisel
http://www.wikihow.com/Engrave
also there are tools that have letters on their head (like the picture below) which you use a hammer to indent the metal with that letter.
If you own a 3d printer I think it's a good idea to try to 3d print your private keys just in case. I found a project that may be interesting to someone. It's a Bitcoin Ingot: Plastic Bitcoin Wallet with printed QR codes and everything, it looks great and I would recommend checking it out here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:241805 I know that plastic can't withstand fire but in most extreme conditions not even hardware wallets will last either and you would need to have etched your private keys on a piece of metal at least but that would have been much more expensive I guess.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:241805
I know that plastic can't withstand fire but in most extreme conditions not even hardware wallets will last either and you would need to have etched your private keys on a piece of metal at least but that would have been much more expensive I guess. Why not store the wallet into your thumbdrive, and burn a copy to CD-Rs, and keep them in a dry box?
all of them are good but also all of them are not permanent and the data on them can be corrupted. even CDs won't work after a couple of years and lose their data.
you have to save your wallet in multiple places and remember to check it with 6 month to 1 year intervals and renew them if necessary.
i dont think that foppy disk is safe. floppy disk is no reliable, i can stop working any time. i think it is just like sucide. i think its not time of floppy disk. there is no concept of floppy disk. we should keep our bitcoins in a safe place.
Jump to: