ioSafe Solo USB Hard Drive Review

There is portable storage and then there is external storage. While many external hard drives fit both bills, the io Safe Solo USB Hard Drive isn't exactly what you'd call portable. For one thing, it weighs 15 pounds. For another thing … it weighs 15 pounds.

But that's OK, because the io Safe isn't meant for portability. It carries a much higher honor -- keeping your photos, files and other media safe during disasters.

The company claims that its drives can protect your data in a house fire or a flood, or both. It can reportedly withstand fire up to 1,550 degrees F for a half hour and is waterproof up to 10 feet of fresh or salt water for up to three days. A spokesman for the company told me the drive is engineered to withstand "real-world disaster scenarios. In other words, it'll survive a flood or fire, but not both … That said, it will survive fire and then water from a sprinkler or hose."

Unfortunately, putting the drive through fire testing wasn't an option for me (at least not without calling the attention of my local fire department). So I decided to test the waterproof option since electronics and water -- and your most cherished files -- almost never mix. I loaded the drive up with some baby photos and dunked it into a sink full of water. I then left it for two hours, watching in the first few minutes as bubbles drifted from the drive, indicating that it was filling full of water.

This probably isn't a drive you'll keep on your desk. Besides being extremely heavy (did I mention it weighs 15 pounds?), it's nearly a foot long at its longest part, and it's about 7 inches tall and 5 inches wide. It's powered by an included AC power supply and this version connected to my computer via USB. The USB cord that came with the drive was long enough so that the drive could rest on the floor beneath my desk.

ioSafe lists the drive's data-transfer speeds as being 480Mbps. In my layman's tests, I transferred 241MB of photos in 15.88 seconds (the average time after three tests), which works out to roughly 121Mbps. As we always mention, speeds can be affected by several things, including the specifications of your computer.

The first thing you should realize is that once the drive is exposed to fire or water, it's no longer considered to be a plug-and-play device. Although I do have a hard-drive docking station, the company spokesman said he realizes that most people won't and that they can send their drives to them for data recovery. "So long as they're covered by the Data Recovery Service, we'll pay to have the drive shipped to use, extract the data and send it back to them on a brand new Solo - all at no cost," he wrote in an email.

A 500GB drive costs $249 with a five-year warranty and five years of its Data Recovery Service. You can shave $99 off the price if you elect not to get it, but I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't. If you're going to spend the money on this tank of a hard drive, I'd go the extra mile and get the tank insurance as well.

After letting the drive soak for two hours (and then sit for another day), the drive was taken out of the sink and the casing unscrewed. Inside (and you can see in the pictures) was a silver bag encasing the drive. I cut out the bag and cut it open, revealing a Seagate Barracuda drive.

When I plugged the driver into my hard-drive docking station, it registered just like any other hard drive and all the files I had put on there appeared. Success!

Bottom Line

Although I wasn't able to replicate a house fire to verify their claims, the company says it will pay a certain amount if they can't recover your data (again, as long as you've paid for the Data Recovery Service). Yes, the drive is far more expensive than your average 500GB external hard drive, but the security it promises is worth it.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.