"Private Cloud?" That's a bit of a stretch of the definition. Seems like by that definition, any resource that is accessible via the Internet to which access is limited is a private cloud.
Now if you could network these together over the Internet, and have your data spread across multiple devices and there was some ambiguity as to what data is on which device, that would be a private cloud in my eyes.
Hi Jeff- Thanks for your comment. We're calling this a "Private Cloud" because it leverages all the great work done by Synology over the years. There are an abundant selection of applications for smartphones, tablets and computers that allow you to access your data from anywhere on just about any device. Terabytes of data can be easily stored and managed locally or remotely.
The huge advantages with the private cloud are speed, cost and security. There's no practical way for the small business or prosumer to push/pull terabytes of data across an internet connection. It can costs thousands per month in online fees. Large databases are huge targets for hackers (Amazon S3, Apple iCloud, etc.).
To your comment, you should think of this product like a building block for data protection. You could easily place multiple units around your local network (wireless LAN hidden in a closet?) to build as much storage, redundancy and protection as your budget affords. Use in a way that makes sense for you.
While I'd prefer to see an option with more drives (I think 5 is really a sweet spot) that would presumably just be a matter of scaling up if they do well, and overall it looks like a solid bit of kit. However, given the emphasis on reliability I wish it had the ability to run something like FreeBSD and ZFS. That would give many more, better options for replication, performance, and help guard against corruption and other forms of loss too. Having that as a base would also open up the possibility of users adding things like multifactor support for improved security without ioSafe having to be responsible.
It's good to see options like this being considered though, and this seems like a good foundation for future products. I'll definitely be watching for what ioSafe comes up with down the road.
I'd like to see some of the claims independently tested to see if they hold up. I'd rather know that the data can survive before hand rather than finding out they can't after an incident.
I remember reading the previous article and seeing the hole in the product line with a NAS ioSafe missing. I will definitely look at one when I finally get my own house later this year.
Regarding proof vs resistant, I presume they make the claim proof because a disaster is likely to last only so long. If your home catches fire it the room where the safe was located will not burn intensely for 10 hours and the unit is water tight for 72 hours. Unless it was caught in a jungle fire or tsunami it's going to survive.
I asked a similar question about the firerating on the article about a previous ioSafe product and was given this in answer:
"Hi Dan-
The average house fire lasts 10-20 minutes at about 1100 degrees. Almost all fires involve water. In fact most of the damage is done by the fire fighter hoses than by the fire. Typically, when a room burns, all the fuel in the room is used up in a relatively short time. If a building burns for a couple hours, it's not the same spot burning as the fuel gets used up over a few minutes.
1400 degrees is a VERY hot section of the fire (typically right at the ceiling. As you move downward in the room, the temps drop into the 300-400 degs F near the floor.
iTunes can share it's library to other iTunes. This enables you to play music from another iTunes library. The Diskstation software emulates a shared iTunes library. Honestly, I don't find this useful for my home computers, but when a friend comes over it enables them to access my library without having to use up my computers resources.
My dad used to own a safe in the house, because most of his documents are physical.
Most of my data is digital nowdays: family videos & pics, scans of documents (diploma, certs, transcripts). And I would hate to lose it all in a fire/flood/quake scenario.
I started to realize this is the new "house" safe, granted.. it does not replace the physical safe above (guns, ammo, actual docs), but today we would also require this solution in the house.
While cloud is gaining steam, Few issues still lingers with the cloud based backup: -I still would like to have physical copies of my data, just in case those cloud company(ies) decided to go rouge/belly-up/pull a digital heist.
-Personally, I would not store any personal data in the cloud without an encrypted container (truecrypt comes into mind), which presents some logistical challenges on uploading one large container (few tens of gigabytes), to the cloud for every backup session.
-I have to rely on a secondary service to access it (internet provider), in a disaster scenario, it could be days before I can access any of my cloud stored data, while this device will run with laptop & generator/inverter.
Obviously all of the above scenario are extremes, but these are exactly where safes earn their keep. Although the price is steep, being an engineer myself, I still can appreciate the amount of effort required to do this and started to realize the asking price is not too bad.
Rob, if you're reading this, please don't take this the wrong way... But I would like to know if the file structure are user accessible and whether the user can simply plug and play the removed drive into a plain window vista+ laptop to retrieve the data? Obviously this is not the preferred method, but in case ioSafe "struggles" again, This would be the only failsafe to what otherwise would be a very expensive, burnt digital storage that remains inaccessible.
Hi PEJUman- Because this is a NAS with a Linux based file system, it's a bit more complicated than our external hard drive products. If our Solo series external drive goes through a fire, you'll need a simple USB HDD dock after extracting the raw drive from the carcass of the Solo.
For the NAS, you'll need a recovery core (Diskless N2) or a Synology NAS or a Linux machine to read the EXT4 file system.
Our devices come with a Data Recovery Service as well in which case we would work to recover the data for you and ship it back on a replacement system - all not cost to you if you're under the service plan.
Iosafe waterproof synology is really great onsite backup. But in comparison with regular ds1515+ need to give up extra 1k. I guess its worth it to not loose sensitive data. Just strange that iosafe comes with 1year manufacturer warranty not 3 like Synology http://www.span.com/compare/DS1515+-vs-ND000-0/463...
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15 Comments
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Jeff7181 - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
"Private Cloud?" That's a bit of a stretch of the definition. Seems like by that definition, any resource that is accessible via the Internet to which access is limited is a private cloud.Now if you could network these together over the Internet, and have your data spread across multiple devices and there was some ambiguity as to what data is on which device, that would be a private cloud in my eyes.
robb.moore - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
Hi Jeff-Thanks for your comment. We're calling this a "Private Cloud" because it leverages all the great work done by Synology over the years. There are an abundant selection of applications for smartphones, tablets and computers that allow you to access your data from anywhere on just about any device. Terabytes of data can be easily stored and managed locally or remotely.
The huge advantages with the private cloud are speed, cost and security. There's no practical way for the small business or prosumer to push/pull terabytes of data across an internet connection. It can costs thousands per month in online fees. Large databases are huge targets for hackers (Amazon S3, Apple iCloud, etc.).
To your comment, you should think of this product like a building block for data protection. You could easily place multiple units around your local network (wireless LAN hidden in a closet?) to build as much storage, redundancy and protection as your budget affords. Use in a way that makes sense for you.
Robb Moore
CEO
ioSafe
zanon - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
While I'd prefer to see an option with more drives (I think 5 is really a sweet spot) that would presumably just be a matter of scaling up if they do well, and overall it looks like a solid bit of kit. However, given the emphasis on reliability I wish it had the ability to run something like FreeBSD and ZFS. That would give many more, better options for replication, performance, and help guard against corruption and other forms of loss too. Having that as a base would also open up the possibility of users adding things like multifactor support for improved security without ioSafe having to be responsible.It's good to see options like this being considered though, and this seems like a good foundation for future products. I'll definitely be watching for what ioSafe comes up with down the road.
Nacho - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
I think you are missing the target for this product: Fire + water proof backup, with raid for increased reliability.Kevin G - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
I'd like to see some of the claims independently tested to see if they hold up. I'd rather know that the data can survive before hand rather than finding out they can't after an incident.bobbozzo - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
Hi, Please use the term Disaster-RESISTANT instead of proof.Coup27 - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
I remember reading the previous article and seeing the hole in the product line with a NAS ioSafe missing. I will definitely look at one when I finally get my own house later this year.Regarding proof vs resistant, I presume they make the claim proof because a disaster is likely to last only so long. If your home catches fire it the room where the safe was located will not burn intensely for 10 hours and the unit is water tight for 72 hours. Unless it was caught in a jungle fire or tsunami it's going to survive.
Impulses - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
Doesn't take a tsunami for floods to last longer than 72 hours...DanNeely - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
I asked a similar question about the firerating on the article about a previous ioSafe product and was given this in answer:"Hi Dan-
The average house fire lasts 10-20 minutes at about 1100 degrees. Almost all fires involve water. In fact most of the damage is done by the fire fighter hoses than by the fire. Typically, when a room burns, all the fuel in the room is used up in a relatively short time. If a building burns for a couple hours, it's not the same spot burning as the fuel gets used up over a few minutes.
1400 degrees is a VERY hot section of the fire (typically right at the ceiling. As you move downward in the room, the temps drop into the 300-400 degs F near the floor.
-Robb
Robb Moore
CEO
ioSafe "
evilspoons - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
"iTunes Server"? Has Apple transitioned iTunes to some sort of client/server model?psedog - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
iTunes can share it's library to other iTunes. This enables you to play music from another iTunes library. The Diskstation software emulates a shared iTunes library. Honestly, I don't find this useful for my home computers, but when a friend comes over it enables them to access my library without having to use up my computers resources.PEJUman - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
My dad used to own a safe in the house, because most of his documents are physical.Most of my data is digital nowdays: family videos & pics, scans of documents (diploma, certs, transcripts). And I would hate to lose it all in a fire/flood/quake scenario.
I started to realize this is the new "house" safe, granted.. it does not replace the physical safe above (guns, ammo, actual docs), but today we would also require this solution in the house.
While cloud is gaining steam, Few issues still lingers with the cloud based backup:
-I still would like to have physical copies of my data, just in case those cloud company(ies) decided to go rouge/belly-up/pull a digital heist.
-Personally, I would not store any personal data in the cloud without an encrypted container (truecrypt comes into mind), which presents some logistical challenges on uploading one large container (few tens of gigabytes), to the cloud for every backup session.
-I have to rely on a secondary service to access it (internet provider), in a disaster scenario, it could be days before I can access any of my cloud stored data, while this device will run with laptop & generator/inverter.
Obviously all of the above scenario are extremes, but these are exactly where safes earn their keep. Although the price is steep, being an engineer myself, I still can appreciate the amount of effort required to do this and started to realize the asking price is not too bad.
Rob, if you're reading this, please don't take this the wrong way...
But I would like to know if the file structure are user accessible and whether the user can simply plug and play the removed drive into a plain window vista+ laptop to retrieve the data?
Obviously this is not the preferred method, but in case ioSafe "struggles" again, This would be the only failsafe to what otherwise would be a very expensive, burnt digital storage that remains inaccessible.
cdenesha - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
PEJUman,You can learn this at www.synology.com, for example http://www.synology.com/support/faq_show.php?lang=...
chris
robb.moore - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
Hi PEJUman-Because this is a NAS with a Linux based file system, it's a bit more complicated than our external hard drive products. If our Solo series external drive goes through a fire, you'll need a simple USB HDD dock after extracting the raw drive from the carcass of the Solo.
For the NAS, you'll need a recovery core (Diskless N2) or a Synology NAS or a Linux machine to read the EXT4 file system.
Our devices come with a Data Recovery Service as well in which case we would work to recover the data for you and ship it back on a replacement system - all not cost to you if you're under the service plan.
Hope that answers your question. Thanks!
-Robb
edward1987 - Friday, November 4, 2016 - link
Iosafe waterproof synology is really great onsite backup. But in comparison with regular ds1515+ need to give up extra 1k. I guess its worth it to not loose sensitive data. Just strange that iosafe comes with 1year manufacturer warranty not 3 like Synology http://www.span.com/compare/DS1515+-vs-ND000-0/463...