When the name of an external storage unit is mentioned, you always remember Kingston with all its storage units, most of which are flash drives that dominate the market, and the Egyptian one in particular. But, we wonder, what would be the situation with an external encrypted touchscreen SSD?
It’s clear that Kingston wants to enter a new market, which is that of external storage devices that are fully secured by encryption placed on the unit itself, and the beginning of the poem here is the IronKey Vault Privacy 80 unit that we are going to test today.
But we must also mention that it is already a competitive market and not a new market created by Kingston itself. We have tried similar units before, which Kingston wants to compete with in the market. However, before we get into details, we need to make something clear about IronKey.
About IronKey
In fact, IronKey was not originally created by Kingston. IronKey was initially a startup company that was funded by the US government, which in turn provided secure hardware and encryption software to US government agencies.
This company was sold in two parts, the first section is the encrypted storage units for Kingston and the second was for DataLocker, which acquired the company’s software services.
So, Kingston is now completing a project that was already in the works. A project whose products have begun to reach the market since the beginning of the acquisition that took place in 2016, and now it enters the area of ​​external SSD units that are secured through the storage unit itself with an encryption circuit that has nothing to do with the operating system, whatever it is.
IronKey Vault Privacy 80 specifications
We must first talk about the specifications offered by the IronKey Vault Privacy 80 unit before we touch on the design of the unit and how it works, which will reflect the functions of the unit because it will not be treated like any external SSD that we review, but rather it is from another world this time.
In terms of security, for you as a user, everything will work through the touch screen placed on top of the unit and its internal processor will be responsible for processing everything from A to Z, and this processor is designed only to provide these safety standards.
The processor provides XTS-AES 256-bit encryption, which comes from the highest military categories of encryption, and this also provides protection techniques against attempts to attack by force – that is, entering an infinite number of passwords until it reaches the final code – while providing two patterns, a user pattern and a pattern Administration.
This user mode will have fewer privileges, of course, while the administration mode will enable its user to use all the features provided by the volume. For example, setting certain conditions for the password of the volume and the number of attempts to enter, and most likely the user of this pattern will be responsible for the data department in his company or the main owner of this unit.
But at the same time, there are features such as providing data read-only modes, clearing the encryption from the unit, setting the encryption time again after the end of use and similar properties, and all this through a touch screen to facilitate dealing with the unit as a whole.
Look at the unit itself
But for it, and on the basis that it is an ordinary SSD, it is a unit with a touch screen on top of a body made of zinc and plastic to ensure light weight with high durability. This unit, which comes in capacities up to 2 terabytes, and today’s version is almost a terabyte, comes in blue only and there is no other color.
The unit relies mainly on USB 3.2 Gen 1 connections on the Type-C port only, and the unit comes with an attached cable from Type-A to Type-C with a travel bag, knowing that the unit is compatible with any device that can operate storage units Big and encryption has nothing to do with the device, it has to do with the unit.
Overall user experience
We opened the unit for the first time and set different passwords for its user and administrative accounts. It was very easy, and then we followed all this up by setting a specific length and a specific password structure as well, in order to complicate things a bit for whoever will use it.
But in reality, the matter was complicated for us because we discovered that the device changes its default keyboard combination to make things difficult for everyone, and this feature can be disposed of later through the administrative account that has the ability to disable it.
The same account from which we changed the period of operation of the unit and also changed the passwords as we want. It wasn’t difficult at all because it’s a simple menu that takes you to the option you want from an intuitive touch screen, which makes it much easier to write about.
The screen is bright and responds quickly to your commands, which is all you need from it. At the same time, the operating system itself – if it is correct to call it an operating system – is not the kind that carries great functionality, no. The slide helps him a lot with this, making it smooth and balanced. Accessing your data in this case will not be difficult because you will deal with a fast system that does everything you need.
Final verdict
The experience is not complicated at all, but it secures all the entrances. No one will access your data placed on this unit except for those who have the right to access it, and you are the one who determines this before anyone else. No other party can access the unit because even if it is connected to the computer, the computer will not recognize it unless it decodes it.
To make it simple, the unit can only be dealt with before decoding it through the screen only. The computer itself does not know anything about it until after decryption with the key that you set in order to remain the only one to blame in the event that this key was leaked, or in a more correct sense, you cannot blame the storage unit for losing your data now unless it lost it or shared the key with someone.
Kingston’s IronKey Vault Privacy 80 remains the perfect choice for companies that want to share their important and costly data with only the workers who deserve access. At the price of $ 300 that Kingston provides this storage unit, we advise all companies operating in any sensitive field or with sensitive data in general to consider providing this device in their warehouses instead of resorting to cloud solutions.
