I wonder if a strong flare would affect the whole Earth or just the facing side? If data on Safe is geographically well distributed and with a bit of luck, we might come away without much data loss … of course the global networks we use to carry that information would have to be rebuilt – no small feat I think.
While true, this doesn’t mean we don’t have flares, it just means there are far fewer of them … and that also means we can still have large ones … I don’t know if the probability of a large one is lessened or not.
Maybe you are being sarcastic, but satellites are not the most protected - in fact they are quite vulnerable to large flares.
I know you are addressing the OP with the 2 years notice. But to clarify for those that don’t know, this could happen anytime and we’d only have (from estimates I found on the web) between 12 to 40 hours to prepare. We would know however as we can see the flares happening and we do monitor the Sun closely. So if you prepared in advance even a little bit, you could unplug all of your personal hardware and place it in a basement - perhaps wrapping it in a conductive box or sack that is well grounded (copper rod hammered deep into the ground). At the least you could probably remove your hard-drives and USB devices and protect them - even if you have to bury them in the ground for a while (protective coverings!).
The REAL issue, IMO, isn’t going to be the loss of cultural data, but the data of business and the networks businesses depend on … a chance of a small dark-age taking over for a time. Quite a scary possibility.
Failing that, an oven or a metal fridge, even a biscuit tin.
