Seagate tried just such an experiment over the winter that ended with the perhaps inevitable result. The stunt started in early December when Pete Steege, global segment manager at the drive maker, posted the first of what would be a series of YouTube posts chronicling the drive's long winter.

"It's December in Minnesota, which can only mean one thing: It's time to make some ice," Steege says to the camera in a dimly-lit video that started off the drive's long winter. "Just to do something different this winter I decided to freeze a FreeAgent Go 320GB hard drive into my ice rink this winter."

The drive, which contained about 8 years worth of Steege's personal data, photos and videos, was encased in a plastic bag and buried about 3 centimeters deep in ice.

The winter turned out to be one of the coldest for several years and on one morning in mid-January the outside air temperature dropped to -28 degrees Celsius, according to one of the .

Despite the cold he remained hopeful that the drive would survive its treatment.