ioSafe Rugged Portable External Hard Drive
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The rise of the digital nomad (wow, that sounds melodramatic) has prompted tech manufacturers to build their mobile gear lighter, stronger and just plain better. Towards that end, ioSafe prides itself on crafting “disaster proof hardware”.
As proud travel tech geeks, we jumped at the offer to take their ultra mobile, near-indestructible Rugged Portable external hard drive for a spin (pun intended).
The Skinny
In brief, here’s the elevator pitch straight from ioSafe:
The ioSafe Rugged Portable is the safest way to move data. Whether you need to protect data from drops during your commute or protect it from the most extreme environments on the planet, the Go-Anywhere Ultra Rugged Portable Hard Drive is up to the job.
- Crush protection up to 5,000 lbs.
- Drop protection up to 20′
- Immersion protection up to 30′ for 3 days
- USB 3.0 and USB 2.0
- Data Recovery Service up to $5,000
- World’s best warranty
- Works with Macs and PCs
The full (and impressive) range of features can be found here.
In Detail
The Rugged Portable’s design is every bit as straightforward as the above photo indicates. In fact, there isn’t much to it at all – it’s a sleek, silver box with only two notches in the back. One is a Kensington Lock compatible slot, and the other provides an input for the data/power cable. That’s it.
We had no issues installing it on the Vagabondish.com supercomputer (i.e. our office HP Laptop). It was a no-nonsense plug-and-play affair and we were able to transfer files using our standard backup software without issue. All of this is not unlike other external hard drives we’ve tested.
But the Rugged Portable is different (and better) in three very important regards:
According to the above stats, it’s damn near indestructible. OK, OK. So we didn’t personally punt it out the window or set it on fire (you didn’t really expect that level of commitment from us, did you?). But based on the above stats and the fact that it’s built to military specifications, we believe them. It was also a winner of the CNET’s Best of CES 2011 Award. Nothing to sneeze at.
Secondly, if the above isn’t enough to entice you … it (along with all ioSafe products) also comes with an unheard of No-Hassle Warranty. In their words: “If your ioSafe Rugged Portable stops working for absolutely any reason within the warranty period, we’ll replace it or repair it. It’s that simple.” Plus, they include up to $5000 (actual amount depends on model) for third party forensic recovery service if needed.
To further clarify this point, they assured me that, “It doesn’t matter how or why it broke – even if the owner did something extremely silly, the warranty will still cover it (and the Data Recovery Service will apply too).” I can’t stress enough how important this is to travelers.
Lastly, the included Genie Timeline Professional software is a godsend in backup software. It’s truly the best we’ve ever used. For PC users, it’s like a Windows version of Apple’s Time Machine. Suffice it to say that all of its details are beyond the scope of this simple review, but travel tech nerds can get the full scoop here.
Pricing & Availability
Available now in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities starting at $149 directly from ioSafe.
Bottom Line
It’s twice the price of standard external hard drives … but with 1,000 times the reliability and protection. You do the math.
Wouldn’t you rather pay a little extra to store your once-in-a-lifetime, bucket list vacation photos on a near-indestructible hard drive?