Most businesses require a much higher level of security than home owners. They process and save documents that have tax ramifications, as well as store higher cash money on a daily basis. Various unique vault and safe issues can be very important in situations like this. Most businesses utilize an alarm system in conjunction with their money safe or vault.
Many of the home safes that we have discussed previously can and are used by businesses. But, a few are specific to business use. You may have heard of some of these safes. Here are a few: Office Safe, Drop Safe, Deposit Safe, Rotary Hopper Safe, Hotel Safe, Bank Vault, Data Safe, Media Safe. Some of the names are a little redundant. For instance, the rotary hopper safe is a type of a deposit safe, and a media safes and a data safes can be interchangable.
A bank vault is different from a conventional safe in that it is an integral part of the building that it is in. Sometimes called a strongroom, it is in fact an armored room with a heavy, close fitting steel door and a complex locking mechanism.
Here is an interesting quote from Wikipedia about Vaults: “Historically, strongrooms were built in the basement of a bank where the ceilings were vaulted, hence the name. Modern bank vaults typically contain many safe deposit boxes, as well as places for teller cash drawers, and other valuable assets of the bank or its customers. They are also common in other buildings where valuables are kept such as post offices, grand hotels, rare books libraries and certain government ministries.”
Typically the office safe is a stronger version of the home safe. They are usually fireproof. Their fire ratings are usually much higher. In most cases, they are drop tested to verify that they will not unlock when dropped from a specified height. And the locking mechanism is usually more secure than a home safe. Most of these safes utilize an electronic lock of some kind.
These inexpensive safes are provided by hotels so that their lodgers can have a secure place to put their valuables during their stay. These are not really very secure, but, it beats leaving your valuables laying around. They are usually mounted to the wall with supplied bolts. Some have automatic lockout in case too many consecutive incorrect attempts have been made. If the guest forgets the combination, there is a master card or key that the front desk can use to open it. These are considered a low security safes.
These are state of the art and can be quite expensive, depending on the size and specs. Paper inside a safe that is in a fiery room can withstand temperatures of up to 350 Degrees Fahrenheit for a couple of hours without being destroyed. Digital media, however can only withstand temperatures of less than 125 degrees and humidity lower than 85%. So, what is digital media? Think computers and video. We are talking about video and audiotape, CDs and DVDs, floppy diskettes, and all types of film, including microfiche.
In today’s data centric world, the data safe (or media safe) is quickly becoming the most important addition to any business. The loss of a company’s valuable data, due to fire, can deal a knockout punch from which they might never recover.
These are used by banks, postal offices, and anywhere that a quick secure deposit needs to be made, without opening the safe door. Usually the valuables are dropped into a small hatch in the top or front of the safe. These are used to hold the valuables temporarily until the goods can be transferred to the main safe or else processed in some way (such as when a teller processes a bank deposit).