How many backup copies have you for the wallet ?

[nioc]

Can a USB fail?

I use the Electrum wallet so my backup is a 12 word seed.  Actually seeds as I have multiple wallets.

2 copies are with people who I can trust my life with.  I have access to one of the sd boxes.  This also means if when I die my btc lives on.

1 copy is in a wall in my house.

You got me thinking.  I need to bury one at my summer home.

[zeeshanblc]

3 are enough I think

[Kieran Bass]

3 copies in separate areas.

[e1ghtSpace]

I had 2 paper wallets but I accidentally opened one of them instead of another so I lost my backup.
I hope my house doesn't flood.

[Meuh6879]

Can a USB fail?

No if you don't use it.
Yes ... but always because of the software that it restore. 

[DubFX]

Can a USB fail?

No if you don't use it.
Yes ... but always because of the software that it restore. 

It can fail mechanicaly by too big moisture, by bad manipulation or by short circuit quite easily, you should rather go for more expensive and known brands.

[Meuh6879]

on SD perhaps (contact are very cheap) ... but not with soldering memory on USB real plug.

[dKingston]

Can a USB fail?

No if you don't use it.
Yes ... but always because of the software that it restore. 

It can fail mechanicaly by too big moisture, by bad manipulation or by short circuit quite easily, you should rather go for more expensive and known brands.

It is generally best to keep multiple copies of your backup in various storage formats, eg, paper wallets, USB drive, flash drive (from different manufacturers). This would lessen the chances that you would have no access to your keys.

[fran2k]

I have 4 copies in different locations but thats only for my cold storage wallet.

That is risky, because if one is in the wrong hand, others become useless. I'd prefer to have only one that is well secured.

I have pendrives with truecrypt volumes and the wallet is encrypted itself. So I have two layers of encryption. There is no problem if someone gets one copy. Also I have a few copies and also memorized of the electrum seeds, which I have rewritten into some pages that only me knows how to interpret.

[Denis_Diderot]

Only have 1 copy because i don't have much btc in my wallet

[johnyj]

I remember someone had hundreds of wallets and he don't need a back up. If one of those wallets are compromised he will start to move the others, but to manage so many wallets, you must be a IT professional with good scripting skill

[bitbaby]

I have 3 copies, none on paper all 3 on different usb drives and I think it's enough.

[Rampion]

I have 4 copies in different locations but thats only for my cold storage wallet.

That is risky, because if one is in the wrong hand, others become useless. I'd prefer to have only one that is well secured.

No. You can have multiple layers of security.

For example:

1. Set a good walletpassword. A long string, 35+char with special signs.
2. PGP encrypt the wallet itself.
3. Use stenography to put it inside a picture.

What somebody peaking at your usb-stick would see would just be vacation001.jpeg etc, and no wallet.dat. They wouldn't even know it's there, and if they knew, they sure as hell would be unable to extract anything from it.

You can also rent a few VPS'es, and save the wallets there (password protected wallets that are also pgp encrypted), and name it like something innocent, like wifi-driver.bin or something.

So, even if your house burned down, you'd be safe.

I kinda like the stenography concept myself but the truth is that there are tools that easily detect such techniques. If an attacker is specifically targeting your bitcoins he will probably discover pretty fast in which files you are hiding something.

1. Set a good walletpassword. A long string, 35+char with special signs.

This is top security.

2. PGP encrypt the wallet itself.

Top security, but probably overkill considering you already did 1.

3. Use stenography to put it inside a picture.

Only 3 would be very bad security, combined with 1 (and/or 2) is OK but quite unnecessary IMO. The bad side of techniques like stenography is that they might seem like the most secure option to a non-savvy user - and a false sense of security is the mother of all hacks

[cryptasm]

6 backups at the moment, encrypted on USB's and SD cards. Two of them are stored in safe deposit boxes (two different companies), gave two out to some trusted friends and buried the others up a mountain (in two different locations)  

ahhh correct, i forgot my CDs  

---

you gave it to friends? do you think this is a good idea? hopefully encrypted?

Yeah all my backups are encrypted, the friends I gave a copy to are completely unaware what's stored on the USBs 

[wordman267645]

It depends how much bitcoin you want to store.I have few bitcoin to store.so i have only one copy of my wallet.

[LiteCoinGuy]

I'm using coinbase so I don't need copy

Trust  3rd party?
Never ever . 
TRUST NOBODY

[LiteCoinGuy]

6 backups at the moment, encrypted on USB's and SD cards. Two of them are stored in safe deposit boxes (two different companies), gave two out to some trusted friends and buried the others up a mountain (in two different locations)  

ahhh correct, i forgot my CDs  

---

you gave it to friends? do you think this is a good idea? hopefully encrypted?

Yeah all my backups are encrypted, the friends I gave a copy to are completely unaware what's stored on the USBs 

okay, at least they dont have a clue. you should keep it that way.

[JeffZwolle]

How many copies I have?
I'm sorry, but that is confidential information
 

[Onetallnerd]

Around 5 all being BIP-38 password-encrypted wallets. :-) I also have them on a couple of spare USBs that have never been connected to an internet enabled device.

[Mightycoin]

2 copies, one on my table and one in my wardrobe..sufficient for me ..

Why would someone need 10+ copies?