Today for review I’ve got one of the toughest and most
rugged hard drives on the market today. At least I think it is, or it’s
supposed to be according to the specs. The product is the ioSafe Rugged
Portable that features a 750gb hard drive in it. The ioSafe is meant to fully protect your data
through the roughest conditions you could possibly think of. We’re not talking
carrying it in your bag either, this thing can be burnt, dropped, run over,
dunked in water, and you data will still be safe.
Product Name: ioSafe Rugged
Portable
Author: Kristofer Brozio
Sponsor: ioSafe
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Like an aircraft
black box for mobile data.
The ioSafe Rugged
Portable is the safest way to move data. Whether you need to protect data from
drops during your commute or protect it from the most extreme environments on
the planet, the Go-Anywhere ioSafe Rugged Portable Hard Drive is up to the job.
-Crush protection
up to 5,000 lbs.
-Drop protection up
to 20′
-Immersion
protection up to 30′ for 3 days
-USB 3.0 and USB
2.0
-Data Recovery
Service up to $5,000
-World’s best
warranty
-Works with Macs
and PCs
Operational
Details:
-5400 or 7200 RPM
HDD in 250 GB to 1TB capacities
-SSD capacities
from 256GB-512GB
-Supports both PCs
and Macs
-Billet-machined
Aluminum and Titanium enclosures
-USB 3.0
(compatible with USB 2.0 computers)
Physical Security
Specifications:
-Full Metal
JacketTM Technology — CNC machined enclosure from a solid billet of aluminum
(Al) or titanium (Ti) alloy. Crush resistant to up to 5000 lbs (Ti) and 2500
lbs (Al) yet weighs as little as a pound (Al).
-Full Suspension
DriveTM Technology — Full suspension in all six axes of motion. Optimized for
data loss protection from drop and shock of 20′ drops (SSD version) and 10′ drops
(250-750 GB HDD versions, 1TB HDD requires optional drive skin) per
MIL-STD-810G Method 516.5.
-HydroSafeTM
Technology — Waterproof yet heat conducting barrier to protect against data
loss in up to 10′ for 3 days in fresh water or salt water (aluminum version) or
30′ for 3 days (titanium version) per IP68. Protects data even when USB or FW
plug is in. No requirement for a connector cap to retain data protection.
-ChemSafeTM
Technology — Full immersion in diesel fuel, oils, hydraulic fluids, aircraft fuels,
12′ depth for 1 hour with no data loss per MIL-STD-810G Method 504
-EnviroSafeTM
Technology — Continuous exposure to UV, blowing sand, blowing dust, rain, salt
fog, icing or freezing rain, 24 hours with no data loss per MIL-STD-810G
Methods 505.4, 506.4, 509.4 and 510.
-AltiSafeTM
Technology — High altitude operation. 15K ft. (Alum.) and 30K ft. (SSD and Ti.)
rated altitudes per MIL-STD-810G Method 500.4
-Theft Resistant
Kensington Lock compatible slot solid metal construction — theft protection Software
Specifications (included but not required for use):
-Genie TimelineTM
Pro Full Version2 ($60 Value) Award winning backup software. Simple, block
level, open file and OS Continuous Data Protection (CDP) software for Windows
users. Disaster recovery for entire hard drive including programs and settings,
roll back and AES encryption features for the ultimate protection. Registration
required at www.iosafe.com to validate purchase prior to downloading software
and install code.
-Apple Mac
TimeMachine Supported — Apple Time Machine fully supported. Reformat of device
may be required. Simple instructions online at www.iosafe.com
-TrueCrypt AES-256
Encryption Compatible3 – Open source, encryption software. FIPS 140-2, ISO/IEC
10118-3:2004. PC, Mac and Linux compatible.
Inside The Box:
-ioSafe Rugged
Portable + DRS
-USB 3.0 Cable (USB
3.0 version)
-Owners Manual and
Warranty
System
Requirements:
-Intel Pentium II
350 Mhz-compatible or Mac G3 processor & greater
-For USB 3.0/USB
2.0 speeds, the system must support applicable specifications
Operating
Environment:
-Operating: 0-35°C
(95°F)
-Non-operating:
-40°C to 65°C
-Operating
Humidity: 5% – 80% (non-condensing)
-Non-operating
Humidity: 100%, Full immersion, 10 feet, 3 days.
Price: $299.99
A Better Look at Things
:
So the ioSafe Rugged Portable Hard Drive comes in a cardboard box with a
window on the front where you can clearly see the drive itself. There’s plenty
of information all over the box as well.
Inside you’ll find the drive and two bags with documentation and USB
cables in them. The USB 3.0 cable is blue as is common. There’s a USB 2.0 cable
included as well, it’s the ‘Y’ type with an extra power connection.
The drive itself looks just like a solid block of aluminum, very non-descript
actually. It’s actually rather heavy.
On the bottom you’ll find four rubber feet and a note to make sure you
activate the data recovery warranty.
On the back end you’ll see the USB connection, LED indicator and the
hole for a Kensington lock.
Inside the aluminum casing is actually a 2.5” hard drive, but it’s much
larger than that. I put it next to a regular 3.5” hard drive for size
comparison.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
Here it is plugged in and turned on, the LED is blue.
It’s a rugged drive, so before I did any of that testing on it I ran the
regular tests on the drives performances. I used only the USB 3.0 interface for
testing. For comparison I put it up against the Seagate
GoFlex 500GB USB 3.0 drive.
I ran Atto, Crystal DiskMark and SiSoft Sandra Removable Storage,
Physical Disks, and File Systems Benchmarks.
First up let’s use Atto.
I’m a bit surprised at the performance on the GoFlex, but as you can see
the ioSafe performs fairly well.
Next up is Crystal DiskMark:
Again the GoFlex performs surprisingly slow, but the ioSafe is nice and
fast.
Next up is the SiSoft Sandra File Systems Benchmark.
Benchmark mounted
file systems (i.e. volumes).
This is not the raw
disk performance that other benchmarks test – but the speed of the volume
itself that depends on many more factors like file system, operating system
cache, position on disk, etc. Thus this is the performance you get at the file
system level.
Drive Score: is a
composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the
average of the read, write, and seek tests, and file and cache size. It is
intended to represent drive performance under typical use in a PC. A larger
number means better performance. The weighting of the results is not equal it
represents the distribution of different files sizes as used on these devices
(obtained through field research).
Same results as the others as expected.
The next test is the Physical Disks Test.
Benchmark hard disks (i.e. the disk itself, not the file system).
As the test measures raw performance it is independent on the file system
the disk uses and any volumes mounted off the disk.
Drive Score: is a composite figure representing an overall performance
rating based on the highest read or write speed across the whole disk. Thus the
higher the better.
Access Time: is the average time to read a random sector on the disk,
analogous to latency response time. Thus the lower the better.
Lastly is the Removable Storage Test.
Benchmark removable
and flash devices.
Combined Device
Score: is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based
on the average of the Combined Score figures over the four file sizes. (Higher
is better, i.e. better performance)
Yet again the ioSafe performs very well.
So we know that the ioSafe has decent performance, but how tough is it?
Well it supposedly has the ability to be dropped ten feet and still
survive so I threw it around a bit and it still worked.
I then let my Pitbull have at it to see what she would do with it. It’s
supposed to be tough right, so I figured it could handle a Pit. Well she played with it, licked it and gnawed
on it a bit; she tried to gnaw on it, but it’s metal so she gave up after a
while.
I also decided to run it over with a car as it is crush proof
supposedly.
Well that worked very well. The ioSafe appeared to be perfectly intact
except for a few scratches and scrapes on the housing.
I plugged it in and it still worked perfectly fine.
I was curious so I had to open it up. To open it up you have to remove
the four rubber feet and then remove the screws that are underneath. When you
open it up you’ll see a red rubber gasket that helps seal liquids out and the
hard drive is there cushioned by rubber. The hard drive is a Seagate Momentus
750GB.
Summary and Comments
If you’re looking for a truly rugged and portable drive to protect your
data then this is the one you want.
Most likely the average person won’t subject their ioSafe the conditions
it’s meant for, but it’s nice to know that your data will be safe.
It’s a bit on the expensive side yes, but if you have a need for
something like this I think it’s well worth the cost, especially for the data
recovery services that are included with it.
DragonSteelMods gives the ioSafe Rugged Portable a 4.5 out of 5 score
and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
+Safe and secure
+Includes data recovery
+Decent speeds
Cons:
-Might be considered expensive
-Large for just a 2.5” drive inside
-Heavy and not exactly portable
review#705
Disclosure: This product was given to DragonSteelMods for review
by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment
for the review; we do not, never have, and never will, accept payment from
companies to review their products.
To learn more about our review policy, testing methods and ratings
please see this page.