ioSafe is a manufacturer of disaster protected hard drives and

network attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. In this context, the term "NAS" can refer to both the technology and systems ...

(NAS) appliances. The company was founded in 2004 and is based in

Roseville, California Roseville is the most populous city in Placer County, California, located within the Sacramento metropolitan area. As of 2019, the United States Census Bureau, US Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 141,500, making it the third-l ...

. ioSafe's storage systems are optimized for heat from fire and complete submersion in fresh or saltwater with the ability to recover data located on the disk drive inside.

History

ioSafe, Inc. was incorporated in 2005 by the primary inventor and CEO, Robb Moore. In response to independent research regarding data loss and catastrophic business loss from fire, flood and other natural disasters their first product (released in 2005) was the ioSafe S1, the first external hard drive to have both fire and flood protection. The ioSafe S1 hard drive was later redesigned and re-released in a dual drive

RAID RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

configuration called the S2. In 2006, in response to enterprise business demand for a fire and flood resistant network storage, the ioSafe R4 was introduced. Shortly after this

NAS Nas (born 1973) is the stage name of American rapper Nasir Jones. Nas, NaS, or NAS may also refer to: Aviation * Nasair, a low-cost airline carrier and subsidiary based in Eritrea * National Air Services, an airline in Saudi Arabia ** Nas Air (S ...

appliance entered production, ioSafe was granted and published patents in May 2007 for their FloSafe (fireproof) and HydroSafe (waterproof) technology. The company was purchased by

Vancouver, Washington Vancouver ( ) is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington, located in Clark County, Washington, Clark County. Founded in 1825 and incorporated in 1857, Vancouver had a population of 190, ...

-based CRU in July 2018. This acquisition was a strategic combination of the hardware safeguards provided by ioSafe and CRU which could subsequently address the combined and non-overlapping customer bases of the two companies.

Company Milestones

*2004 — ioSafe introduces first fire and flood protected external hard drive *2005 — ioSafe incorporates in the State of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

*April 2006 — Awarded Golden Mousetrap Award by

Design News Design News is a business-to-business media brand covering news, trends, and technology insights for the engineering community. Owned by Informa Markets — Engineering, it is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. The brand has been in p ...

magazine *November 2006 — Introduces a

Network Attached Storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. In this context, the term "NAS" can refer to both the technology and systems ...

system with shock-protection, fire protection and water submersion protection *May 2007 — Patents granted and published for protecting active electronic devices inside a fire safe *November 2007 — Patents granted and published for protecting active electronics from water *July 2008 — Introduces a 3.5” internal

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

with integrated disaster protection *January 2009 — Introduces a 1.5 TB disaster protected external

*January 2010— Introduces a disaster protected external solid state drive *January 2011— Introduces a disaster protected portable

*January 2012— Introduces a disaster protected

Thunderbolt (interface) Thunderbolt is the brand name of a Interface (computing)#Hardware interfaces, hardware interface for the connection of external peripherals to a computer. It was developed by Intel in collaboration with Apple Inc., Apple. It was initially marke ...

, rugged portable

SSD A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses Integrated circuit, integrated circuits to store data persistence (computer science), persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-stat ...

, with

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

*January 2013— NAS product named

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

Editor's Choice * July 2018— Acquired by CRU Acquisition Group, LLC (now CRU Data Security Group, LLC)

Products and product characteristics

ioSafe sells fire- and water-proof storage servers and network attached storage devices. Temperature protection has been typically at least the

ASTM ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is a standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical international standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems and s ...

E119ASTM E119-18a title: "Standard Test Methods for Fire Tests of Building Construction and Materials" industry minimum of 1,550 degrees Fahrenheit. Their products are not all designed in-house; for instance some products have been designed by the Taiwanese company Synology. The company has developed several protective technologies, such as a patented rugged case, and three protective technologies for internal hard drives referred to as FloSafe, HydroSafe and DataCast. FloSafe is an air flow technology that helps in protection against extreme heat; HydroSafe also helps with heat dissipation, but the primary role is in protecting against salt and fresh water contact and immersion; DataCast is an

endothermic An endothermic process is a chemical or physical process that absorbs heat from its surroundings. In terms of thermodynamics, it is a thermodynamic process with an increase in the enthalpy (or internal energy ) of the system.Oxtoby, D. W; Gillis, ...

insulation technology using "trapped water molecules" and is a primary heat protection layer. In July 2008, ioSafe selected Fujitsu 2.5 inch hard disk drives (HDD) for its ioSafe 3.5 series, the first "disaster protected internal 3.5 inch

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard ...

HDD". The company added its patented rugged case and configured the drives to be used in 3.5 inch HDD hardware bays. The following year, 2009, the company introduced the ioSafe Solo, a ruggedized external hard drive using an internal hard drive as its storage medium.

References

Notes

External links

Hard DriveChannelPC Magazine Discussion

Reviews

Review at Wall Street Journal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iosafe Electronics companies established in 2004 Companies based in Placer County, California Computer storage companies Computer hardware companies Computer companies of the United States