Best USB drive to store your Bitcoins

ranlo

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Quote from: drugs on March 10, 2015, 06:10:12 AM

I second all those who recommended sandisk drives. Never once had a problem with mine.

Quote from: mishax1 on March 10, 2015, 05:33:25 AM

Can't rely 100% on technology, that's why I got the paper wallets..

But I also second this. Don't just rely on one usb. Back them up on 2 usbs and maybe other ways. On some wallets you can recover your coins from a seed so write that down as well.

Eh, I like brand loyalty as much as the next guy, but hardware is hardware. You might not have issues with Sandisk, but I have numerous times. Just like I have with most other companies. As such, when it comes to something like this, just being careful is the best step, rather than relying on the hardware to serve its purpose for a lifetime.

Snipe85

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Quote from: mishax1 on March 10, 2015, 03:52:25 AM

Quote from: Snipe85 on March 09, 2015, 02:39:34 PM

Quote from: mishax1 on March 09, 2015, 02:17:24 PM

Never gonna use an SD card for this.

How is an SD card worse than a USB drive? They both use the same flash drive technology. You could as well buy a whole SSD drive, but why waste money.
It actually might be a good idea to keep a card hidden somewhere in your wallet. This way you'll have access to money in case of emergency like a house fire. Of course this is an option for people heavily invested in crypto, who don't have much fiat.

It doesn't matter how much crypto or fiat one has, offline storage is the most secure.

How do you encrypt an SD to carry it around with you? If you lose it, you will probably need to change the keys anyway.. and the chance to lose a wallet is too high..

There are many things you can do to secure the card, one of them is a simple archive with a password. Another is hiding the real file among a number of fake ones. All of these things will buy you time if the card gets stolen.

Nobody forces you to have all your money on that card and yes, you will probably have to move cash from the wallet, but it doesn't seem like much of a problem. The person, who steals your card will still need the password (or passwords, if you use encryption or protected archive) to take your money, while you'll just get home and move it to a new address in less than an hour.

drugs

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I second all those who recommended sandisk drives. Never once had a problem with mine.

Quote from: mishax1 on March 10, 2015, 05:33:25 AM

Can't rely 100% on technology, that's why I got the paper wallets..

But I also second this. Don't just rely on one usb. Back them up on 2 usbs and maybe other ways. On some wallets you can recover your coins from a seed so write that down as well.

mishax1

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Can't rely 100% on technology, that's why I got the paper wallets..

Muhammed Zakir

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Quote from: pooya87 on March 10, 2015, 05:08:53 AM

go ahead and ask this guy: How to get the Bitcoin off my USB stick? what kind of usb he had and how did he lost it. it is good to know what "not" to do.

It was his fault probably. Using USB isn't a problem if you "know" what you are doing.

-MZ

pooya87

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go ahead and ask this guy: How to get the Bitcoin off my USB stick? what kind of usb he had and how did he lost it. it is good to know what "not" to do.

mishax1

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Quote from: Snipe85 on March 09, 2015, 02:39:34 PM

Quote from: mishax1 on March 09, 2015, 02:17:24 PM

Never gonna use an SD card for this.

How is an SD card worse than a USB drive? They both use the same flash drive technology. You could as well buy a whole SSD drive, but why waste money.
It actually might be a good idea to keep a card hidden somewhere in your wallet. This way you'll have access to money in case of emergency like a house fire. Of course this is an option for people heavily invested in crypto, who don't have much fiat.

It doesn't matter how much crypto or fiat one has, offline storage is the most secure.

How do you encrypt an SD to carry it around with you? If you lose it, you will probably need to change the keys anyway.. and the chance to lose a wallet is too high..

ranlo

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Quote from: PaulPierce on March 10, 2015, 03:38:51 AM

For me I am just going to buy a cheap brand name usb and use that.

If it's just for the wallet file (and it's a BACKUP, not your only copy), that should be fine. Most drives go through issues after repetitive reads/writes or due to being filled up past their "true capacity" (some drives are altered to make them think they have more room than they do). If it's just for a wallet file, a cheap USB drive should handle the job of allowing access without causing too many issues. Just keep in mind that it can wipe at any point.

PaulPierce

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For me I am just going to buy a cheap brand name usb and use that.

ranlo

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Quote from: mishax1 on March 08, 2015, 04:38:34 AM

I'll go ahead and post this in the Beginners section as it fits the most in my opinion.

Which USB drive would be your best choice for storing sensitive data like bitcoin keys and wallets and why?

Please provide a link to your preferred USB stick.

I have ordered a Sandisk Cruzer Force 8gb for 4$ from ebay just because I had some change in my paypal account, yeah it might be fake, and i'm not sure if i'm going to use it for that kind of storage. (If it's fake i'm going to charge back this crap).
I've seen it's rating on Amazon store and it looks like a decent USB.

So, what would be your pick ? (links please(amazon/newegg/ebay).

With ANY USB stick, be sure you have backups. Always. USB sticks (thumb drives) run on flash memory, and it's not known for its reliability (I can't count the number of times a drive has been wiped/lost files randomly). Absolutely do NOT use it as your only source of backup.

kpitti

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I would go and look for known manufactures as:

ADATA
Corsair
Kingston
Verbatim

I am using Kingston Corsair. I have two of them one is more then 5 Years old and still working fine.

Snipe85

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Quote from: mishax1 on March 09, 2015, 02:17:24 PM

Never gonna use an SD card for this.

How is an SD card worse than a USB drive? They both use the same flash drive technology. You could as well buy a whole SSD drive, but why waste money.
It actually might be a good idea to keep a card hidden somewhere in your wallet. This way you'll have access to money in case of emergency like a house fire. Of course this is an option for people heavily invested in crypto, who don't have much fiat.

mishax1

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Never gonna use an SD card for this.

NeuroticFish

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The idea is good.
You can get the unused SD card you had in an older cellphone.
Stop the cellphone, stick the SD into the cellphone, or just use the old cellphone (maybe even better).

Connect the cellphone (old or new) to PC, transfer the wallet to SD, get the SD card out and you have a good storage, also maybe for free if you wanted to throw it away.

Quote from: mishax1 on March 09, 2015, 01:28:31 PM

This is suppose to be an offline backup, how does my cellphone helps? Roll Eyes

The cellphone will be only the USB stick replace for a few seconds.
If you have a card reader you don't even need the cellphone.

Of course, the source PC has to be safe, offline, ... you know the drill.
The SD card will NOT stay in the cellphone anymore. You'll put it somewhere safe.

Muhammed Zakir

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Quote from: mishax1 on March 09, 2015, 01:28:31 PM

This is suppose to be an offline backup, how does my cellphone helps? Roll Eyes

Don't connect your phone to internet. Wink

If you have two phones, try to give Bither a try. Mutlisig HD.

-MZ

mishax1

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Quote from: ?? on ??

I'd say buy any drive you want. A double backup on 2 cheapest drives should provide more security than a single, more expensive stick. You can also use SD card, even your phone's internal memory and the capacity doesn't matter because a backup uses only ~2MB.

This is suppose to be an offline backup, how does my cellphone helps? Roll Eyes

mishax1

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Quote from: NeuroticFish on March 09, 2015, 10:13:36 AM

Paper wallets (on paper) and 2 copies on whatever USB drive you have.
In case that both USB drives fail, you'll have to enter the private key(s) by hand, no biggie.

I don't think that too much energy has to be invested in finding "the most reliable USB drive".

I made QR codes for all the keys I created with vanitygen, so I don't need to type them Roll Eyes

Just wanted to see which USBs people are using and get some recommendations..

NeuroticFish

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Paper wallets (on paper) and 2 copies on whatever USB drive you have.
In case that both USB drives fail, you'll have to enter the private key(s) by hand, no biggie.

I don't think that too much energy has to be invested in finding "the most reliable USB drive".

mishax1

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Waiting for the price to rise eh ? Wink

me too.. I also thought of the Ledger wallet.. I will probably buy it when it's price is under 0.05BTC Grin

ChuckBuck

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better everyday ♥

Unrelated to USB drives to backup wallet/wallet.dat, but sorta related since it looks like a thumb drive and around the same size of one:

https://www.ledgerwallet.com/

I regularly backup my Bitcoin Core wallet.dat to a Sandisk Cruzer and Lexar thumb drive, but hoping to get my hands on a Trezor or Ledger wallet sometime this year.

Topic: Best USB drive to store your Bitcoins (Read 3348 times)