Dedicated Cold Storage
just wanted to say that my definition of this is a bit different. which obviously makes the usage, and pros and cons of it different too. so i'm just going to leave my thoughts here and this is the cold storage that i have been using for years.
what you need:
- a USB disk (from 2 GB to 16 GB depending on how you want to approach this). This is the only cost ($10?)
- your favorite wallet. it can be anything that allows you to import/export transactions and sign/broadcast them. from core and armory to Electrum although some are more user friendly.
- your favorite linux distro. you can use the most famous one like Ubuntu if you are not familiar with linux
what you do:
- if it is a small USB then you use a smaller linux distro or use it live (Live Ubuntu can be installed on 2 GB easily). but a bigger USB disk and a faster one (eg USB 3.1) is much better because of speed and the fact that you can do a full install and have an easier time of encrypting an doing other things than you can do on the live one.
- after this you enhance the installation by encrypting your home folder, installing the wallet, encrypting the wallet, set login password, disconnect network permanently, disable guest users, .... (most of these are optional BTW).
-
make sure to make a backup, such as printing your seed/private keys on a paperthe rest is just transferring the raw tx between cold and hot wallets for signing and broadcasting respectively.
pros:
costs nothing!
every code you use (such as the wallet or the linux itself) are open source
you have full control
the setup is very flexible, you can add any option like QR reader so that you don't even have to transfer anything physically
high security
cons:
it is a little complicated and you need to spend some time learning how to do some of these steps if you are not familiar with them.