Customer Reviews

ioSafe Solo 1.5 TB Fireproof and Waterproof External Hard Drive with 5 Year Data Recovery Service SL1500GBUSB205YR (Silver)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pros:

* Reasonably priced considering what you are getting (fireproof, waterproof, theft protection)

* Includes a way to bolt the drive down for theft protection

* Gives peace of mind - protecting my code (I'm a programmer) and other valuable data

* I emailed the company with a question about encryption and got a fast response that answered the question

Cons:

* Only USB 2.0 interface - could be faster with USB 3.0 or eSATA (future update?)

Other:

* Unit weighs about 15 pounds

* Requires external power supply

* Must register within 7 days with ioSafe

* My 2TB unit uses a Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 hard drive

* Can buy DRS (data recover service) extensions/upgrades to 5 years

* Check the videos (YouTube) on the Internet to see what this thing can take

* I use mine with my Windows Home Server and backup the shares and backups to it

* Encrypting data on the drive may make data recovery more difficult in case of disaster

* I bought a unit with 5 years of DRS and it shipped out as two seperate packages - the HD with 1 year DRS and a DRS upgrade to 5 years

I am a real estate lawyer, a sole practioner, and it is vital for me to be able to access my documents and client files quickly and reliably and to be able to recover those files in case of a disaster. I spent a good bit of time researching fire and water resistant drives and the ioSafe Solo was the best I could find for my situation. The level of protection was first rate and better than several other drives I looked at which cost substantially more than the ioSafe product.

I am not a techie but I have been working with computers since my first Radio Shack Model III in 1981 so I am fairly familiar with the technology. After receiving the drive from Amazon and reading the directions I was confident that I could have installed the drive myself but I have a consultant who manages my server and LAN for me and I elected to have him install it to avoid finger pointing if I somehow interfered with his system. He was also impressed with the quality and cost of the drive and has recommended it to other customers since installing mine.

I use the ioSafe drive as my primary drive for my network and have been especially happy with the response time for the drive. I cannot tell any difference between accessing documents on the ioSafe drive and on my "local" drives. I had the drive installed on a Saturday and my secretary did not realize that her files had been moved until I pointed out the new drive to her.

I hope to never need ioSafe's recovery services but hurricanes are always a threat in coastal Georgia and it's great to know that I am able to have the protection of the ioSafe system with no degradation in the speed of my day to day activities. I highly recommend the ioSafe Solo to any small business looking for a secure, fast and economical solution for data storage and access.

Pros:

* Reasonably priced considering what you are getting (fireproof, waterproof, theft protection)

* Includes a way to bolt the drive down for theft protection

* Gives peace of mind - protecting my code (I'm a programmer) and other valuable data

* I emailed the company with a question about encryption and got a fast response that answered the question

Cons:

* Only USB 2.0 interface - could be faster with USB 3.0 or eSATA (future update?)

Other:

* Unit weighs about 15 pounds

* Requires external power supply

* Must register within 7 days with ioSafe

* My 2TB unit uses a Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 hard drive

* Can buy DRS (data recover service) extensions/upgrades to 5 years

* Check the videos (YouTube) on the Internet to see what this thing can take

* I use mine with my Windows Home Server and backup the shares and backups to it

* Encrypting data on the drive may make data recovery more difficult in case of disaster

* I bought a unit with 5 years of DRS and it shipped out as two seperate packages - the HD with 1 year DRS and a DRS upgrade to 5 years

well after looking at this for a few months and waiting for the price to drop i took the plunge and ordered it.

i literally exhaled in relief that my data would b stored on a drive that i have seen nothing but great reviews on.

i hooked it up and powered it up after rearranging my desk due to it's massive footprint.

i was first saddened to hear it's fan whirring away and creating it's noise that made me realize that i would have to shut it down when ever i was recording vocal or acoustic guitar tracks in my control room.

what a p.i.t.a. considering my massive loop libraries that i was hoping to house on it to free up space and keep safe.

so for the sake of having my data safley stored i figured i would just roll w/this inconvenience of having to either power down and up to use my libraries and also not have the fan noise on my recordings.

second thing i realized is that it is a Hatachi drive inside :[

out of the 4 Hatachi drives i have had

only the one still working is in my MacBookPro and 2 of them are still in cue to be sent out to have the data recovered.

so again i rolled w/ it and hoped for the best.

after having to format the disk i went to back up via "Time Machine" and it took 14 (fourteeeeeen) or so hours,

despite it taking any other drive i back up 4 hours on the first run.

so i left it to do it's backup and when i checked it the next day it had an error message saying,

"the backup was not performed due to an error,use disk utility to repair your disk."

so i did and then i got the error message,

"..can't repair this disk,back up your files,reformat your disk and restore your back-up files."

to this i had to laugh,

after all, this is supossed to be my, "back up disk"

and it would not let me acess any of my data

so how was i suposed to back up anything from this unusable un-repairable disk?!?!

s0oOooooo i wiped the drive and reformatted it yet again and then started to back up my data yet again.

it did the "Time Machine" backup in the usual 4 hrs that time

so i figured it was ok.....

however,

it fully crashed when i went to start up the next time i used it.

it would not even mount (show up on the desktop like a healthy drive does).

so i restarted it and tried to re-prompt it by starting "Disc Utility" to no avail

so i rebooted the computer and power cycled the ioSafe again a few times and it finally recognized one of the partitions

then i tried too run "Disc Utilities" again and it gave me the,

"..can't repair this disk,back up your files,reformat your disk and restore your back-up files."

AGAIN!!!

this was after an hour or so of waiting for Disk Utilities.

ahhhhhhhhhh....ok.....so like how am i supposed to "repair" a disc that wont even mount for Disc Utilities to be able to see it in the first place?!?!?!?!?!

W.T.F.?......OVER......

so i called up and got an RA # to return it.

the person i talked to knew nothing of the different drives that ioSafe installs into these enclosures so i will call ioSafe during their 9-5hrs tomorrow.

however,

i am leary of having them replace it because i dont want to use my one time replacement from the 5 (FIVE) year policy i bought on the unit for a p.o.s. Craptachi drive right out of the box that i have not even had for a week yet.

i'll update as it unfolds.

b.t.w. the 2 stars are only here because i LOVE the idea of the fire and water deal but mainly being able to purchase a policy for my data is what got me.

also anyone willing to keep their fingers crossed for me is appreciated as i NEED some dependable storage so i can get back to recording.