Disaster-proof hardware: ioSafe's SoloPRO 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 A

In 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.