ioSafe Disaster Proof Hard Drive

This tip is provided by Diane Ebersole with the State Bar of Michigan's Practice Management Resource Center.

The team from ioSafe, a disaster proof external hard drive, recently presented a webinar for the Practice Management Advisor’s group.

Fellow PMA for the Law Society of British Columbia, David Bilinsky has written a review of this fireproof/waterproof hard drive. At the end of this post there are additional links to some video demonstrations of the resilience of this drive.

If you are looking for a back up drive that is safe from physical disaster check this one out. Here is the website, http://iosafe.com, and here is David’s review:

http://thoughtfullaw.com/2010/10/25/tech-tip-iosafe/

Tech Tip – ioSafe
911 taught us that each of us needs to maintain a safe and secure backup of our data in order to allow our businesses to survive any natural or man-made disaster. Accordingly it is imperative that we set up a back-up system that (hopefully) survives any disaster that befalls our office.

Above find a picture of an ioSAFE hard drive. This is an external hard drive that is practically bomb proof! It is USB 2.0 enabled, fireproof (it can withstand 1550 F (843 C) for 30 mins), waterproof (it can be submerged up to 10 feet (3 meters) deep in fresh or salt water for 3 days) and can be physically locked or bolted to the floor. It is also heavy – it weighs about 17 pounds (7.7 kilos).

It works with both PCs and Macs. It comes in large capacities (1, 1.5 and 2 terabytes) and it comes with data recovery insurance as well. It is also whisper quiet! This is a wonderful hard drive for backup purposes for a solo or smaller law office. I have one and love it!

It works wonderfully well with TimeMachine on my Mac. I had to do a reformat of the hard drive for the ioSafe to work with the Mac OS but this just took a couple of minutes and was straightforward (as typical of a Mac, my MacBook detected the ioSafe and detected the formatting issue, prompted me to perform the required action and completed the reformat shortly afterwards). Painless!

Once reformatted, the backup of my MacBook using TimeMachine onto the ioSafe was equally straightforward as well. I simply reconnect the ioSafe when I wish to update my backup and TimeMachine does the rest.

If you are ever hit with a disaster (which can range from a fire to a flood caused by a burst pipe or overflowing sink in the office above yours), if you have a secure backup, then while we can’t un-break your heart, we can bring back your smile and take your tears away.

Links to additional demos:

Gear Diary blogger and firefighter Larry Greenberg enlisted the help of his colleagues and incinerated it in a car prior to dousing the flames with a hose: http://tinyurl.com/luxtbz.

Macworld submerged it in a fountain and then hit it with a fire cannon: http://tinyurl.com/3yc7syh

Gadgeteer heated it up and then fried eggs on it: http://tinyurl.com/3yqrokx