I thought I read on their website that it was good for 20 minutes in a mere 8" of water? And that's not taking into account the fire burning away the water seals..

I also expect 177C to be higher than the maximum allowable storage temperature for any hard drive, though a quick google could test that theory.

The difference between tapes and disks is interesting: tapes hold less data, and are much slower, but have the huge advantages of (1) no mechanical/electrical parts to die, and (2) they tolerate partial failures.

So I suppose that would make them the first choice for a "file and forget" style of archiving things. Redundant (duplicated) disks are much better when they are accessed often enough to notice failures.

Cheers