ioSafe Rugged Portable 1TB Review

Hey all,

As I am of the paranoid kind when it comes to hard drives, I have invested in a ioSafe Rugged Portable 1TB drive, the non-ssd version.

For a matter of completion I will list their safety features below, but will clearly not test them as you will understand when reading them.

Included service with a standard purchase as I made, without upgraded warranty you get:
- Data Recovery Service for 1 Year - one time, any reason, no questions asked, includes accidental deletion, any damage, disasters or hardware failure. Up to $2500 is being covered. This can be upgraded to 3 or 5 years if wanted for more money, i.e. $50 and $99 respectively. Given that I have done plenty of recovery, I have not bought this, as I would expect only soft not hard failure on this drive.

The specs that make this thing rugged:
- Crush resistant to up to 5000 lbs
- Drop safe guaranteed for 10’ drops
- Waterproof up to 10’ for 3 days in water - this clearly includes spilled drinks - it is also liquid proof for fuels, oils and the such for a couple of hours if that matters for anyone
- For the more extreme ones, it can withstand extreme heat and cold, for which I will not go into details. Same is true for high altitude operations which are possible.
- Last, it has a Kensington Lock attached.

In the box:
The drive is USB 2 compatible and runs USB 3, includes to separate cable for each as well as an additional rubber coating.
It also comes with the Genie Timeline™ Pro Full Version2 , which I have not used and most likely will not.

Looks:
The drive is large and heavy and much bigger than a comparable 1TB WD drive. I use the WD for mobile use and the ioSafe for my backup-backup. I simply lost too much data (read: money spent on recovery).
As I DJ, the ioSafe will also be my drive of choice for clubs to be raped by smoke, spilled drinks and being dropped.
It IS a big and heavy drive and clearly not intended to run around with. It feels very sturdy.
The attached pictures are the ioSafe drive compared to my WD Passport essential 1TB drive.

Speed:
It is USB 3.
- On single large files I get a continuous 90-100MB/sec, which means 12GB in around 2-3min. The limit here is more likely my internal hard drive as the external one I believe.
- Lots of small files, e.g. pictures start around 30MB/sec and goes up after a while to around 40MB/sec.
It is not the fastest drive, but very much fast enough for my purposes. If I have a chance I will test it on a computer with SSD to see what that brings.

Conclusion:
If you are looking for a 'peace of mind' external drive, as I was, this may be a good choice. Alternatively, if you are working in extreme environments or drunk drop drives (like me as well ) , this is also a good solution.
The drive is big and clunky but it is bearable for me to occasionally carry it around. I would not pay full price for this at all however and definitively chase for a good deal. I ended up paying slightly below $200 which was worth it for me. On the other hand, you can get 1TB WD's for around $110 from various sellers. If you are in need of a sturdy drive, for whatever reason though, I can recommend this drive.

PS: I have already successfully dropped it from my table and it is all good I should really be more careful...

 

I got this case for my WD drive and it's a tank:

WD Nomad

It's definitely not as tough as ioSafe but I don't need the extreme abilities but IMO was a good trade for less bulk and less cost. Both solutions are great but in the end it depends on your requirements on how rugged you need it to be.