Curiously enough, whilst away sampling single-malt in the Highlands, the test laptop apparently died and refused to boot up. It hadn’t previously been backed-up either – surprise, surprise. The hard drive had failed after a period of poor performance, thus explaining the slow data copying issues mentioned earlier, and the only backup of some precious photos was actually on the IoSafe drive that was being desiccated.
Big and heavy, but that's disaster protection for you
Hooking it up to another Mac with a Freecom Sata/USB Hard Drive Dock, the 3.5in Hitachi drive spun up and appeared on the Desktop. A sample of files totalling 411MB were copied off in 20 seconds – equivalent to 20.5MB/s, and not too far off the IoSafe figures. The data was recovered, as the drive had evidently not been consigned to a watery grave.
Verdict
At around £230, the IoSafe Solo represents very good value, with 1TB and 1.5TB options also available at £299 and £345, respectively. However, the absence of any backup software does seem at odds with the IoSafe’s raison d’être, namely, file preservation. Those misgivings aside, if you’re concerned your storage could be compromised by natural disasters, the IoSafe Solo evidently succeeds in protecting your data from two of the most damaging of the Earth’s elements; fire and flood. ®
More External HDD Reviews...
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LaCie Starck |
Samsung Story Station |
Freecom ToughDrive Sport |
IoSafe Solo disaster-proof drive
COMMENTS
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Why did you have to disable the internal fan before dropping it in the well? is this a prerequisite on the eula?
high lands of where, the moon?
re:Report
I'm going to guess power supply failure in the unit as a result of short circuit. That water clearly wasn't clean enough.
And yeah, I'll just separate my data storage across several tall buildings. Much cheaper.
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Come on - tell us why it stopped working as soon as it went into the well?
Alternatively
Two non-fireproof versions, with RAID1, in separate buildings, for the same price.
Solid exterior, but what about the disk itself?
Seriously, Hitachi Deathstar?
And, as AC@1604 said. You do your backup into it, and woe betide you, the drive inside dies. Because it's a Deathstar, no less!
Bet it will survive fire and floods, but not earthquakes even tiny ones that barely register on the Richter Scale.
And yeah, the other reviewers' point that it lacks RAID 1 and NAS capabilities. At the price it's being sold for, I'd rather have a NAS stored in a fireproof and waterproof safe (padded by sponge around it, so it's shock absorbant as well).
Flame. Because that's what happened to the Death Star in Star Wars.
