istora istorage diskashur Pro2 HDD 500GB A hard drive you can encrypt
Pro2 HDD 500GB
It’s a good way to store data you need to keep confidential
Governments disagree about whether encryption is a blessing or a curse, but for the moment anyone can encrypt any data they don’t want their friends, neighbours or rulers peeking at. Windows 10 includes Bitlocker, which encrypts drives, but only in the Pro edition. The rest of us can use free or paid-for encryption software, but here’s an alternative.
Instead of plugging in an external drive and typing a password into software to decrypt it, you get a drive with a built-in keypad. Once you’ve used this to change the default PIN to your own, the drive is automatically encrypted. Wake it up, or connect it to a different PC, and nothing happens. Only when you tap your PIN into the keypad does it show up like a normal external hard drive.
It’s that simple, and an extra benefit is that you never type the password on your keyboard, it can’t be intercepted by keylogging malware. The diskashur Pro2 feels solidly built and is described as shockproof, although bear in mind that its mechanical hard drive mechanism won’t be as tough as solid-state storage ( SSD). The keypad has durable buttons, and a zipped semi-hard carry case is included.
The main advantage of this hard drive version over the cheaper datashur USB stick (see Issue 494, page 24) is its much higher 500GB capacity, but it’s also faster, significantly so when reading (recovering) data from the disk rather than writing (saving) to it. A terabyte costs £284, which is better value than
SPECIFICATIONS
Hard drive with built-in keypad • AES 256-bit XTS hardware encryption • Captive USB 3.1 cable and plug • Carry case • 20x84x124mm (HXWXD) • 225g • Two-year warranty www.snipca.com/24761 500GB for £222, or you can get 2TB for £359. If you need a really fast drive, the diskashur is also available as an SSD, ranging from £199 for 128GB to 1TB for £740, which would only make sense if you were transferring, say, a working digital master of the next James Bond film.
A numeric keypad isn’t ideal – qwerty would let you create a much more secure password in the same number of characters – but as long as you’re happy to remember a sufficiently strong number (seven to 15 digits), the diskashur Pro2 is a good way to store and transport data that you need to keep confidential, whether for personal reasons or for compliance with data protection.
VERDICT
You’d only pay this much per gigabyte for a hard drive if encryption was essential. Keeping the passcode within the drive makes sense and ensures simplicity ALTERNATIVE: istorage datashur USB Flash Drive 44GB £36 These keyring drives arare available in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB,6GB,B, 32GB