How To Protect Data from the Upcoming Solar Storm

     Every so often, the surface of the sun ejects these massive plumes of charged material known as solar flares. Did you know that a solar flare strong enough could hit the Earth and destroy nearly every electronic in its path, including electrical components on Earth’s surface? The most powerful type of solar flare is the X-class flare, which can produce enough energy to destroy electronics and the power grid itself across the side of the planet facing the Sun at the time the flare hits. The last solar storm this powerful was back in 1859, known as TheCarrington Event. This geomagnetic solar storm was so strong that telegraph operators back then reported that they were getting electrocuted while using the machine. A solar storm with the strength equivalency of The Carrington Event will absolutely wipe out all electronics you have. The scary thing about this scenario is that we have a 12% chance of being hit by a storm of this magnitude within the next 10 years.
     Most forms of digital storage devices will not withstand a solar storm, otherwise known as a Coronal Mass Ejection, or a CME. Hard disk drives, including the drives in your home computers, laptops, tablets, mobile devices, and portable hard drives will become fried during a CME. There are other types of storage media including solidstate drives, flash drives, SD cards, and floppy disks (when did you last think about them!?). These may likely not survive the wrath of a solar storm either. Now that I got the types of storage devices that probably won’t survive a CME out of the way, here’s a few items that you can rely on.
     You may use a blank CD (which can hold up to 700 MB):

or a blank DVD (which can hold up to 4.7 GB):

to safely store your data. You can also use BluRay discs (which can hold between 25 and 50+ GB, depending on the type of BluRay disc you buy):


     There’s another type of disc known as a DVD RAM disc, which is mainly used in camcorders. These mini CDs can store up to 9.4+ GB of data:

     A CD/DVD (aka: opticaldisc), will certainly safely retain your memory through a powerful solar storm. The way for your memory to survive through a solar storm would be through storage in a non-electromagnetic source. If any electronics did somehow survive in your home, it won't really matter as your home electricity will no longer function, because the storm will completely shut down the power grid on the sun-facing hemisphere at the moment the solar storm contacts the Earth. The reason our power grid will fail is due to our method of storing and transmitting electricity, which is through electromagnetism.
     But let’s say that you want to save sentimental digital photos, for example, on a device that is capable of riding out a solar storm and assume that society rebuilds completely in the years to come. The blank optical disc is your best bet. Hard drives, floppy disks, flash memory, SD cards, and anything else that uses electromagnetism to store data will almost certainly be erased by the solar storm’s electromagnetic pulse. However, flash memory is stored by using what is known as floating-gate transistors, which is used to store data electrically. These could survive the storm but personally I would play it safe with the optical discs. Optical discs physically store data via laser by using tiny grooves in the disc. Because they store data by physically placing an elaborate array of 0s and 1s on optical disks, they will hold up against any solar storm.
     The only catch to storing data in optical discs would be to assume that optical disc readers would be return in the future if our electronics were wiped out by a solar catastrophe. We're at the point in our current technology where optical discs are becoming obsolete; especially since the arrival of smaller external mass storage devices and large flash memory storage capacities. You can try to bury a DVD ROM in hopes that it will survive the solar storm, but it's highly unlikely that you can dig far enough in your yard to safely protect it.
     Now, there are a couple things you can do to help protect your electronics from a solar storm. You probably don’t live near a cave or a mineshaft, but if you do and they are rarely visited, you can bury your stuff deep underground. But for the rest of us, you can still attempt to bury some electronics in hopes that the solar flare material doesn’t reach your stuff, but again, I have to say that a few feet of Earth probably won’t save your electronics. If you want to try this out anyway and if you have some cash collecting dust, buy a cheap laptop with a DVD ROM and buy a thick durable container made of polypropylene (the container will bear the recycle symbol number 5). This plastic holds up very well against the elements. Place the laptop in the container and seal the container with non-degradable adhesive (perhaps caulk?). Next, protect the container with padding. Styrofoam works best as it also degrades extremely slowly over time. One of those cheap Styrofoam coolers would suffice. Seal the Styrofoam container with the plastic container inside. Next, bury the container as deep as you possibly can. If you get down far enough, the laptop may stand a chance against the solar storm.
     Before you go burying your laptop, first disconnect the battery from the laptop and wrap it up separately. In fact, you might as well discard the battery because it could cause damage to the laptop if it’s left with the laptop for a long stretch of time. Just keep the charger with it as you can simply plug it into the wall once the power grid is restored one day. Maybe bury the battery nearby in a separate container if you really have to keep it. If you bury a laptop, you might as well save a copy of your data on the laptop. If the computer itself survives the CME, so should the data on its disk. Another thing you can try is building a Faraday Cage and storing your electronics inside the cage. It is likely that a Faraday Cage will protect your electronics from a solar storm. But if you go this route, make sure you never plug anything into the wall while inside the Faraday Cage. The only way your electronics can be protected in a Faraday Cage is if they remain unattached to anything. The Faraday Cage itself must be fully sealed.
     If you’re willing to go as far as stashing stuff in caves or constructing Faraday cages, then you may quite possibly preserve what you want and need. But again, I would stick to the optical discs if you plan to preserve your digital information, with the hopes that you can get your hands on an optical drive after the solar storm somehow. But keep this in mind, the side of the world facing away from the sun should be spared from the solar flares. So technically you could probably get your hands on an optical drive that was kept on the other side of the world at the time of the solar storm, so there’s that. If you package & store your CDs and DVDs in an undisturbed dark place and as long as you don't place your discs in direct sunlight (which may cause them to warp over time), these discs will retain your data for many years. Use an expensive high quality Optical disc too. If you’re going this length to protect your data, you might as well do it right and buy high-end.
     Hopefully we won’t have to endure a solar storm this strong in our lifetimes, but it has been 158 years since our last solar storm of this magnitude, which would be capable of wiping out our digital world. And the Sun peaks in its solar flare intensity every 11years on average. So, like most other natural events, it’s just a matter of time!