There’s hardware and then there’s hardware.
Designed to withstand everything from fires to floods, ioSafe’s super-tough $250 SoloPRO disaster-proof external hard drive are seriously hard core. (Conference attendees fired shotguns at ioSafe devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a week ago).
Last year the BBC filmed the company dropping an ioSafe drive from a height of 20 feet, subjecting it to a blowtorch, and even running over it with a commercial excavator. The enclosure was destroyed, but the data survived intact.
More recently, the Business News Network’s Get Connected program put one of ioSafe’s drives to the test with the help of the Vancouver fire department, subjecting it to 15 minutes of 1500-degree heat, then thoroughly dousing it with water. Again, the housing was scathed but the hard drive and its data remained.
Sadly, I haven’t access to a Mythbusters-style workshop, so I’ve not been able to carry out such dramatic tests. I contemplated knocking the drive off the shelf onto the hardwood floor in my home office, but decided against it, fearful that my flooring would show more damage than the device.
See, the SoloPRO makes for a terrific bludgeon. Its heavy metal frame – which releases water vapour at high temperatures to help protect against fires – tips the scales at a mighty 7 kilograms, likely making it heavier than the rest of your home computer components and accessories put together. I imagine it would leave a pretty massive gouge in just about anything.
That said, it will never fall off your shelf if you take advantage of the heavy duty bolt holes at the base of its chassis. Screwing it into a shelf or wall also makes it an unlikely target for burglars. Of course, even if you don’t bolt it down most thieves would likely just leave it alone, unwilling to carry such a cumbersome device in their loot bags.
Should the worst come to pass – let’s say you experience a nasty house fire – and you’re having trouble recovering your data, the SoloPRO comes with $2,500 worth of recovery service in its first year. ioSafe will pay to have the disk shipped to its office, retrieve the data, put it on a new ioSafe drive, and send it back to you. Even if it doesn’t suffer an environmental catastrophe – remember, hard disks are filled with mechanical parts and can break down without the help of a fire or flood – ioSafe will still try to recover your data. Coverage can be bumped up to three years for an extra $50 or five years for $100.
So, assuming the SoloPRO is as secure as ioSafe claims, the only other question is how well it performs.
Despite its gargantuan size, it functions just like any other external hard drive. The model I was sent sports a USB 2.0 port as well as an eSATA jack for those with the ability to take advantage of the faster data transfer protocol. Just plug it in and your computer will recognize a new storage device.
Obvioulsy, ioSafe is far more concerned with hardware than software. As opposed to many popular external hard disks on the market, no backup software comes in the box. That means users need to figure out on their own how best to deploy the SoloPRO.
I simply used Windows 7’s Windows Backup program, which pops up as an option when you plug in a new drive, to backup my personal files. However, eSATA connectivity makes the SoloPRO a good option for businesses as well. It’s compatible with Windows Server and Linux and can run in a Mac environment.
One cautionary note: the fan runs a little loud. Given that the disk is surrounded by inches-thick insulation, a robust cooling solution is to be expected. Still, it creates a noticeable hum that might not be appreciated in quieter environments.
But while it while it might be loud, not particularly pretty, and the opposite of portable, it is practical. If preserving data is a storage device’s top priority – and I’m convinced that it is – then a nearly indestructible hard drive that comes bundled with a no-questions-asked data recovery plan makes a lot of sense. It may cost a little more and take up a bit of extra space, but ask yourself just how much your family photos, videos, documents, financial and tax information, and other personal files are worth. Suddenly the SoloPRO seems like a bargain.
Source:-http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/gadgets/iosafes-hell-or-high-water-hard-drive-can-take-a-beating/article1870478/
