I have an upright frost-free freezer. As long as I do a good job of sealing things I have never had a problem; if not in a glass jar, I always seal in a FoodSaver-ed bag. Occasionally I'll toss half my restuarant dinner straight into the freezer as I walk past. Those are always in either a poorly sealed plastic container or even paper; they get dried out if not eaten in the near future.

I've never had auto defrost freezer except for the one on my kitchen side by side. I don't store much in that one because stuff seems to get freezer burned faster. Only opened bags of stuff go in there and ice cream.

I do the same as Kate and store most things in vacuum sealed bags in my 2 downstairs freezers. Our processed beef is already vacuum sealed when we get it back. Seafood is bought in bulk and I divide it up a seal it myself.

Since both of my freezers are in the basement it is easy to defrost them. I defrost the upright 3 times a year and it only takes about an 1.5 hours. I unload what will fit into the chest freezer and the rest into coolers. Then I put a fan blowing on it which melts the ice in about an hour. I vacuum it out with my wet vac a couple times while it is melting. Then I wipe it dry with a towel and reload.

The chest freezer is only 1.5 years old and hasn't been defrosted yet. I am planning to do it in early fall before we get another couple beef processed in October.

Like Jack, my only auto-defrost freezer is the one on my refrigerator and things do seem to get freezer burned more quickly, and it doesn't seem to freeze as "hard" as the others. In addition to the bottom freezer on my fridge, I have three chest freezers and an upright, and defrost them all yearly when beef is being processed, then go help my daughter defrost her upright. Yes, I use them all, LOL. Two are in the pole barn, one is strictly for beef and the other a mix of venison and chickens, we raise meat birds every year and my husband hunts. The upright in the garage holds pork, we buy a hog locally every year and the final chest freezer in the garage is for garden produce like corn, shredded zucchini for zucchini bread, bags of rhubarb and broccoli. It's also where the raspberries and strawberries we grow go, and the asparagus from our patch. Any butternut squash left in storage in the spring will be roasted, pureed and packed into bags and stored there too, along with peach slices for cobbler and things like freezer jam, homemade bread, unbaked cookie dough, etc.

Because they are not in the house, it's easier to defrost, if it melts a puddle onto the floor it's easily cleaned. My daughter's freezer in in their breezeway, so easily cleaned there too. It's a bigger problem keeping the freezer contents organized than it is defrosting them, LOL.

Annie

Thanks everyone!

I have an upright freezer. I guess it is auto defrost because I have had it over 10 years and never defrosted it. I also freeze every thing in food saver bags. The vegetables last years in the food saver bags.