Bitcoin Forum

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 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/171635883837?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT) 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).

This is very cheap for me, I want to have it :)

with that price, it is very recommendation and safe?

i'm using sandisk blade 8gb, it work good for me, using 3 of those just in case one dies or does some bad joke

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171501

Why just backup on one? USBs are very cheap these days. I have my keys backed up on 3 and a DVD Disc and Cpl of paper wallets. I have lost some Altcoins in the past, so I now take extra precautions.

I use a 16GB Survivor USB stick (corsair) for one of my backups, very sturdy design.


http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Desktop/Corsair%20Flash%20Survivor%2016GB%20USB%20Drive/Corsair-Flash-Survivor-16GB-USB-Drive.jpg


There's more info here: http://usb.userbenchmark.com/Corsair-Flash-Survivor-USB-30-16GB/Rating/1277

dont buy a fake usb stick just because its cheap  ::) - you will store alot money on this stick!

just go to amazon and buy a solid usb stick with from a good brand. use more than one.

Personally I use sandisk and have been for years and never had a single one die on me. I wouldn't recommend keeping your bitcoins solely on one drive, though. Back your wallets up on at least two drives and maybe some cd-r/dvd-rs or even write your private keys down or wallet seed. That way you're very protected in several ways so you should be safe.


Agreed. Genuine USB sticks are already very cheap so just make sure you buy one from a reputable seller of them. Fake ones are usually easy to tell and they never have the correct stated size.

I'm agree with you, for example this article is interesting : http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/33110.aspx

"In 2008, a number of companies released 64GB USB flash drives. In 2009, there started to be claims that there are also 128GB USB flash dives available. While there are reliable 64 GB USB thumb drives available from well known online and off line suppliers, there were no actual 128GB capacity drives on the market until June 2009. There is a supply of counterfeit goods from China, made of hacked 512mb, 2GB and, 4GB flash drives formatted to appear as 16GB, 3GB, 64GBGB and 128GB flash drives."

It's price is pretty high but it looks decent, I will consider getting one of those for sure..   gonna read some reviews.. ;)

The survivor stealth seems even better:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41i-pwSETfL.jpg



The seller says(at the bottom of the page) that this is a genuine sandisk, lets hope it is :)

Yeah the stealth does look pretty cool ;) There are cheaper USB sticks available but I like to spend a bit more on decent brands, especially when its bitcoin related.

There is also this weird thingy.. lol   http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/dualdrive-type-c/

Whatever might be your choice, but bitkey makes it more secure.
Check that here: http://bitkey.io/ (http://bitkey.io/)

"BitKey is a bootable system image based on Debian containing everything you need to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions. You don't need to install it to a hard drive because it runs live from RAM. You just write the ISO image to a USB drive or burn it to CDROM."

no need to spend too much on backup, just buy plenty of the cheapest sandisk(not fake)

i think there is a 4 gb sandisk version, you could by that, since you don't need tons of giga for the wallet.dat

I'm not even going to store the wallet.bat file on it  ::)

Will you be storing the keys or the core on the usb?

Main things are buy branded Kingston's or corsair. Buy from trusted seller worst thing to get is a fake USB device. And then use a flash drive checker to check its real and has no defects.

If you're going to be storing keys a 4gb should be fine by kingston.

4 gb for keys? isnt that like a lot too much?

Enough spamming thread with useless posts just to get payment for your post. should have made this thread moderated.

answered one post above.


No shit, Sherlock!  ::)

I think you have got enough answers. I suggest you to make a format(not quick) and wait for it to finish(might take some minutes). Some softwares help you to format in more advanced way, that will be better than 'normal format'.

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How are you planning to use it? Create a LiveUSB and install wallet or just store private keys?

   -MZ

I already have paper wallets with keys created with vanitygen on an offline secured machine so another backup on usb would be great. (not a LiveUSB)

Yes! This was actually the first one I had in mind. Surprised to see I'm not the only one who knows about this. It's really designed to store photos but there's no reason why you can't store an encrypted BTC wallet in there. Normal flash drives will actually lose some/most of their data after a few decades due to electron leakage so they're not suitable as a very long term cold storage option.

There is one slight caveat though. Since the purpose of the drive is to act as long term storage, you can't replace any files stored inside. So once the drive is completely filled up with data, that's it.


I think he chose 4 GB because that's about the lowest capacity you can find in stores these days. I suppose even a 128 MB drive would be sufficient for something like this.

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://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6srfAwCEAA_DE1.jpg:large

http://media.coindesk.com/2014/12/ledger-wallet-nano-review-inserted.jpg


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.

Waiting for the price to rise eh ?  ;)   me too.. I also thought of the Ledger wallet.. I will probably buy it when it's price is under 0.05BTC  ;D

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  ::)

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

This is suppose to be an offline backup, how does my cellphone helps?  ::)

Don't connect your phone to internet. ;)

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

   -MZ

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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..

go ahead and ask this guy: How to get the Bitcoin off my USB stick? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=923634.0) 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

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

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


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.

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.

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.