The ultimate data protection strategy involves moving data off-site, but there still are plenty of use cases for disaster-proof storage media. Read about ioSafe's new fireproof hard drive.
I recently checked out the new ioSafe SoloPRO, which is part of the company's series of disaster-proof storage devices (which includes USB 3.0 and eSATA interfaces). The ioSafe SoloPRO disaster-proof hard drive can withstand 10 feet of water for 72 hours and survive a fire up to 1,550° F. In fact, a recent fire at a California medical facility used one of these devices for their patient information.
How these devices work
The ioSafe devices are insulated by a number of protection mechanisms. The case is a high-grade metal, and inside the standalone drive cabinets is a single SATA drive. The drive weighs 15 pounds and is as large as a battery backup device. The ioSafe SoloPRO SSD option brings the shock protection up to 1000g. All of the ioSafe drives have a similar casing and internal protection configuration. Figure A shows a drive cracked open. Figure AIn Figure A, you see that the metal case contains an insulator material, and the drive resides in this chamber. The wrapped enclosure for the drive has the I/O connections tightly wrapped and is peeled away to show the drive. The operating temperature for the drive is up to 95° F, so the thermal concerns of operating the drive are addressed by the two materials selected for use inside the enclosure.
Data Recovery Service
ioSafe offers a Data Recovery Service that provides data recovery with any drive sent to them. In the event of a disaster, the IO cables and interfaces may be unusable; the Data Recovery Service would perform forensics on the disk to retrieve the data.
The ioSafe SoloPRO disaster-proof hard drive sells for $249. Visit the ioSafe site for more details about its compatibilities and capacities.