If you require absolute data security on the go, this review is certainly aimed towards you. Check out our verdict on the iStorage Disk Ashur Pro2 HDD with several industry standard encryptions.
Product on Review: iStorage Disk Ashur Pro 2 HDD
Manufacturer: iStorage
Street Price:
500GB: GBP £209.00 / USD $222.00
1TB: GBP £269.00 / USD $279.00
2TB: GBP £329.00 / USD $329.00
3TB: GBP £369.00 / USD $369.00
4TB: GBP £429.00 / USD $419.00
5TB: GBP £489.00 / USD $449.00
We’re no stranger to a storage review here at Vortez, often looking at the fastest SSDs any given manufacturer has to offer, trying to one-up each other at any given opportunity, but in a change of pace, today we’re looking at something which will undoubtedly fail on the speed front, but offers many features nothing else we’ve seen can get anywhere near touching.
The iStorage Disk Ashur Pro2 is a safe, secure, encrypted portable HDD featuring the latest in cybersecurity. The Disk Ashur Pro2 offers incredible levels of data integrity in the event of the drive being lost or misplaced, or even stolen from you in the attempt of gaining expensive knowledge.
While these acronyms may mean nothing to the average Joe, the Pro2 is the world’s first and only NCSC CPA, FIPS 140-2 Level 3, NLNCSA BSPA and NATO restricted level certified encrypted portable hard drive.
The drive uses pin-authentication to unlock the AES-XTS 256-bit encryption inside the drive, offering access to a range of capacities from 500GB all the way up to 5TB. Connectivity is provided by a built-in USB 3.1 cable, with full backwards compatibility for 2.0 and 1.1, all the while, offering full support for nearly every operating system out there with Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, Chrome, Thin Clients, Zero Clients and embedded systems all quoted to work.
We’ll continue with further information on the security employed by the drive and throw some benchmarks at it, just because we can, in subsequent pages, but without further ado, let’s take a proper look. We’re looking at the 1TB HDD model, with SSD version also being available, which claims read and write speeds of 148MB/s and 140MB/s respectively.
iStorage on the Disk Ashur Pro2:
Technical Specifications
Packaging & Bundle
The box that the drive arrives in is covered in information with barely any area wasted at all. There’s an image of the drive on the front and claims made to the “Designed, developed and assembled in the UK” on the bottom.
The rear gives even more information, in bullet point, multi-lingual format, ensuring you know what you’re purchasing. However, having said that, there isn’t a single mention on the box as to whether this is the HDD or SSD model, which is also available.
Alongside the HDD is a leatherette zipped pouch with a small carry handle, instruction manual and free licences for Nero BackItUp and ESET Drive Security worth over £45 at RRP.
Closer Look
Opening up the carry pouch, the HDD is neatly tucked away inside. From this moment onwards was, at least in part, when we started to realise why the drive is as costly as it is. This is a tremendously beautiful piece of design with properly premium quality materials used.
The upper and lower parts of the construction are made from a smooth, painted metal with a raised iStorage logo at the top. The outer edge is made from a dense but soft-touch rubber with a perfectly designed indent for the built-in USB 3.1 cable.
The buttons are also clicky and sturdy, giving great reassurance that they will perform time after time, and to help prevent any would-be hacker from recognising commonly used keys, they’re coated in an especially hard-wearing epoxy to avoid wear.
Above the buttons are a trio of lights which will indicate specific states or functions.
The rear houses a small rubber foot in each corner to help prevent scratching the chassis as well as providing a tiny amount of cushioning for the sensitive hard drive inside.
Extracting the cable from the side of the housing, it extends 120mm from the enclosure to the tip of the USB connection which is plenty long enough for laptop users but PC users might find it’s a little fiddly and will want an extension cable, they’re available relatively cheaply from sites like Amazon, however, so that’s no hardship. All the while, it’s also impractical to have a cable any longer than that.
And here’s a closer look at the buttons and coloured LEDs.
Security
EDGETM (Enhanced Dual Generating Encryption) Technology
Offering advanced portable data security via built-in FIPS PUB 197 validated AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption engine. The data encryption key is randomly generated by a Common Criteria EAL4+ ready Random Number Generator and protected by FIPS validated wrapping algorithms. uniquely featuring a dedicated on-board Common Criteria EAL4+ ready secure microprocessor to enhance security through true random number generation and built-in cryptography. The security component employs physical protection mechanisms to protect itself from any external tamper, bypass laser attacks and fault injections and incorporates active-shield violation technology. More specifically, the secure microprocessor reacts to all forms of automated hacking attempts by entering the deadlock frozen state where the device can only restart through a ‘Power On’ reset procedure (i.e. power off/power on). The security lock feature protects the device against any unauthorised firmware modifications from the host side (fully protected against BadUSB). The diskAshur PRO2 uniquely incorporates a secure microprocessor providing secure algorithms to encrypt both the data and the encryption key, giving you confidence that your data is protected to the highest standards at any given time.
FIPS PUB 197 Validated Encryption Algorithm
Employing AES-XTS 256 bit hardware encryption, the iStorage diskAshur PRO2 seamlessly encrypts all data on the drive in real-time, keeping your data safe even if the hard drive is removed from its enclosure.
Super fast USB 3.1
With super-fast USB 3.1 data transfer speeds of 148 MBps (Read) and 140 MBps (Write), you can now access your files faster than ever before. The iStorage diskAshur PRO2 is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1 ports.
Brute Force Hack Defence Mechanism
The iStorage diskAshur PRO2 is intelligently programmed to protect against all forms of Brute Force attacks. After five consecutive incorrect PIN entries the drive will freeze, requiring the drive to be disconnected and reconnected to the USB port to get a further five PIN entry attempts. If a further five (10 in total) consecutive incorrect PIN attempts are entered again, the diskAshur PRO2 will freeze again. To get a further and final five PIN attempts (15 in total), the “shift” button must be pressed whilst inserting the USB cable to the USB port and then an iStorage preset PIN will need to be entered. On the fifteenth consecutive incorrect PIN entry, the diskAshur PRO2 assumes it is being attacked and will delete the encryption key and lock itself, rendering all data previously stored on the drive as lost forever. At this point, the drive can be reset to factory default settings and redeployed.
Self Destruct Feature
You can pre-program the diskAshur PRO2 with your own unique Self Destruct PIN which, once implemented, instantly deletes the encryption key, all PINs, data and then creates a new encryption key.
Unattended Auto-Lock Feature
Set the unattended diskAshur PRO2 to automatically lock after a pre-determined amount of time where the drive has not been used.
Drive Reset Feature
The iStorage diskAshur PRO2 also employs a useful drive reset feature, which can be implemented with a unique command. This clears all PINs and data, and creates a new randomly generated encryption key, enabling the drive to be reset and redeployed as many times as needed.
Tamper Proof and Tamper Evident Design
In addition to incorporating a secure microprocessor, encrypting the data and the encryption key, the diskAshur PRO2 adds another barrier between your data and a hacker. All the components of the diskAshur PRO2 are completely covered by a layer of super tough epoxy resin, which is virtually impossible to remove without causing permanent damage to the components. This barrier prevents a potential hacker from accessing the critical components and launching a variety of futile attacks. Furthermore, the tamper evident design of the diskAshur PRO2 if breached, will provide visible evidence that tampering has occurred.
Data at rest protection
The iStorage diskAshur PRO2 also employs a useful drive reset feature, which can be implemented with a unique command. This clears all PINs and data, and creates a new randomly generated encryption key, enabling the drive to be reset and redeployed as many times as needed.
Wear Resistant Epoxy Coated Keypad
Designed with protection in mind, the diskAshur PRO2 wear resistant epoxy coated keypad hides key usage to avoid tipping off a potential hacker to commonly used keys.
Test Setup & Methodology
Our test system is formatted and a fresh version of Windows is installed with just drives in place – no additional applications. Windows is then updated to the latest release and the drivers are installed.Included in the list of benchmarks are the following applications:
Benchmarks:
AS SSD
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
Futuremark PCMark 8
AIDA64
Test system:
Motherboard: MSI Z270 Gaming M7
Graphics: EVGA GTX 1070 SC
Memory: 16GB CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 3200MHz DDR4
SAMSUNG SM961 256GB NVMe
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD
PSU: BeQuiet Straight Power 11 650W
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit
Monitor: ASUS ROG PG279Q
Benchmarks: Anvil Pro
Benchmarks: AS SSD
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
Benchmarks: ATTO
Benchmarks: AIDA64
Benchmarks: PCMark 8
Conclusion
So, I think it goes without saying that the benchmark results, while present, can pretty much be ignored. This drive hasn’t been designed with speed in mind, in fact, it was probably so far down their list of priorities that it doesn’t even make the first page; regardless of that, we went ahead and tested it anyway. It can’t compare to the SSDs we test, mainly because of the ever-present fact of it being a hard drive, but the USB interface won’t help either.The build quality, as we touched on when unboxing it, is fantastic. The drive has a bit of heft to it, with an all-metal front and back with a tough rubber edging. The keys are lovely and clicky, with their epoxy coating to prevent wear and the built-in USB cable tucks away perfectly and securely. We can’t fault the design at all, it perfectly fits the overall appeal of the device.
Moving onto the actual purpose of this drive, the security. While we’re not outfitted, not by a long shot, to thoroughly test the security aspects of this drive, we can fully appreciate the testing procedure that has gone into making sure the data inside is as safe as it can possibly be. While doing research on what the different accreditations actually meant and how they impact things, we’ve truly begun to understand just how important data can be to some people, which moves us onto the final point.
The price, which, at £270 for a 1TB HDD, is about 6 times the price of anything from reputable brands of the same capacity, but, if you had plans for a product or passwords to bank accounts, ensuring that they remain secure and inaccessible can far outweigh the cost of the drive, many times over, so the value of the drive has to take into account what you will put onto it. If you’re looking for a Steam library to take round to a friends, this doesn’t make any sense, but if you’re transporting something like Bitcoins, perhaps it will. The value is whatever you put on the data inside, instead of the device itself.
Our only suggestion, if we had to make one, would be to buy the SSD model instead, while it’s more expensive, it should offer better drop protection than a traditional HDD.
If you require absolute security in a classy and solid chassis, we can’t see any other sensible option.
+ Excellent build quality
+ Thorough and extensive encryption and data security
+ Easy to use
+ Included USB cable
+ Wide range of capacities available
Neutral
+- SSD model is probably more suitable
Cons
– Costly as a drive (the value is on your data)
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