Cracking Open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Box

The ioSafe Rugged Portable Hard Drive consists of a billet-machined enclosure (aluminum or titanium) and a hard drive (mechanical or SSD).

Mechanical drives come in 250GB, 500GB, 750GB and 1TB versions and cost between $149.99 and $399.99 (US). SSD drives come in 120GB, 256GB, and 500GB versions and cost between $499 and $1,999 (US).

Our 750GB, mechanical drive (with aluminum enclosure) test unit retails for $299.99 (excluding tax and shipping).

Along with the actual device, each drive comes with a 1-year warranty and data recovery service. If your drive "breaks for any reason" ioSafe will fix or replace it. And if the data needs to be recovered, ioSafe will do so "one time, for any reason".

If ioSafe's in-house techs can't recover the data, the company will pay a forensic data recovery firm to do so--up to $2,500 for the ioSafe Rugged Portable and up to $5,000 for the ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD.

For an additional cost, you can extend the warranty (at the time of original purchase) to either three or five years.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Box contents

Inside the ioSafe Rugged Portable's box, you'll find the enclosure and drive, USB cable, USB Y-cable (USB 3.0 models - to provide extra power if necessary from low-power USB 2.0 ports), and product documentation.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Front

The aluminum ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive enclosure (shown in this photo) weighs 1 pound. The titanium enclosure weighs 1.5 pounds. Both boxes measure 3.9" (W) x 5.7" (L) x 1.0" (H).

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Registration warning sticker

To use the data recovery service that comes with the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive, you must activate the product.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Bottom

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: USB port, Kensington security slot, and activity light

Along the lower edge of the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive are a Kensington security slot, USB port, and disk activity light. The drive is available in USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 models. This drive has a Micro-B USB 3.0 connector.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Micro-B USB 3.0 cable connector

This photo shows a close-up of the Micro-B USB 3.0 cable supplied with our ioSafe Rugged Portable test unit. The cable's other end has a Type A USB connector--standard on most computers.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Screws hidden under rubber feet

Each of the ioSafe Rugged Portable's four rubber feet hide a Phillips screw. You'll need to remove these screws to access the internal hardware.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Removing the bottom panel screws

I expected the ioSafe Rugged Portable's enclosure to be sealed with tamper resistant screws, not these standard Phillips ones.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Case screw and gasket

Each case screw has a rubber gasket, which helps keep the hard drive dry when the unit is submerged in liquid.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Removing the bottom panel

With the bottom panel's screws removed, you can lift off the panel, which is not held in place with adhesive or snaps.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: First look inside

Lifting off the bottom panel, we get our first look inside the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Bottom panel

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Internal hardware

A large rubber cushion surrounds the top of our ioSafe Rugged Portable's 750GB Seagate hard drive.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Removing the upper hard drive cushion

Before removing the ioSafe Rugged Portable's hard drive, you'll need to remove the upper cushion. Luckily, it's not glued to the drive or case, and you can easily lift it out of the enclosure.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Upper hard drive cushion

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Drive assembly lifted away from the enclosure

After removing the hard drive's upper cushion, you can lift the drive assembly (drive, metal bracket, and interface card) out of the enclosure, but not too far. A thin ribbon cable connects the drive assembly to the enclosure.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Drive assembly ribbon cable

A thin ribbon cable connects the drive assembly's SATA/USB interface board to the enclosure. Before completely removing the drive, you'll need to disconnect this cable.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Drive assebmly removed

With the drive assembly removed, we can see a second rubber cushion.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Removing the lower drive cushion

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Lower drive cushion

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Removing the O-ring from the enclosure

An O-ring helps seal the enclosure when the bottom panel is attached. You can easily lift it away from its groove in the enclosure.

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Enclsoure O-ring

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Near empty enclosure

With the drive assembly, both cushions, and the O-ring gone, there's nothing left to remove inside the ioSafe Rugged Portable's enclosure.

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Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Port and drive activity light PCB

The small PCB that contains the USB port, drive activity light, and ribbon cable, is glued to the enclosure--as is the metal bracket that holds it in place. A small plastic cap, which acts as the inside of the Kensington security slot, is also glued in place.

It appears that the PCB and cap are placed in the enclosure and then covered with hot silicone glue (or similar substance). While the glue is still warm, the metal retaining bracket is then placed over the PCB and cap and attached with two screws.

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Drive assembly

The drive assembly on this ioSafe Rugged Portable, consists of a 750GB Seagate hard drive (mechanical), a metal bracket, and SATA/USB interface board.

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Drive assembly - bottom

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Removing the drive bracket screws

Four Phillips screws hold the metal bracket to the drive--two on the side and two on the bottom.

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Drive and metal bracket

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: 750GB Seagate (ST9750420AS) HDD

Our ioSafe Rugged Portable came with a 750GB 7200RPM Seagate Momentus SATA hard drive (ST9750420AS).

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Caption by: Bill Detwiler

Cracking open the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive: Completely disassembled

I was honestly surprised by how easy the ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive was to crack open. Using a standard Philips screwdriver, I was able to open the case and remove the drive in less than two minutes.

This makes the enclosure simple to work on, but could also allow an unauthorized person to quickly make off with your drive—even if the enclosure is secured with the Kensington security slot. To mitigate this risk, you should use the included TrueCrypt encryption software or a similar product.

As I witnessed at CES 2011, the ioSafe Rugged Portable can take a lot of abuse. It’s well built and uses standard components.

Although it’s not designed to withstand extreme heat, it can protect your data better than the average external hard drive. And if the drive is damaged beyond use, ioSafe’s data recovery service let’s you get a comparable replacement with your data preloaded.

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublic
Caption by: Bill Detwiler