INTRODUCTION

   Hardware encrypted drives may have climbed quite a bit in terms of popularity these past couple of years but they are still considered niche products by most people, primarily due to their high cost. No one really denies that such drives are considerably more expensive compared to their "regular" cousins but the amount of protection they offer to your sensitive data is truly staggering and all but ensures no one else can gain access to them other than yourself. Personally, i use several of them for storing both work and private data so I’m always looking to test every such product i can get my hands on. The DL3 FE Encrypted Portable USB 3.2 Gen 1 SSD is one such model and today with me i have the 512GB capacity variant.

   DataLocker (datalocker.com) is an innovative provider of encryption solutions. DataLocker offers encryption products such as external storage, cloud encryption gateways, and central management services for governments, military, and enterprises around the world. DataLocker provides leading encryption solutions under the DataLocker®, DataLocker Sentry®, SafeConsole® and IronKey EMS® by DataLocker brands. Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, DataLocker products combine superior convenience and usability with state-of-the-art security. DataLocker is “Simply Secure.

   The DL3 FE 512GB Portable SSD (currently available in 512GB/960GB/2TB/4TB/7.6TB - there's also an HDD version available in 500GB/1TB/2TB) may share several key features with similar models by other manufacturers (brute force attack protection, self-destruct mode, read-only mode and auto-lock) but they've taken a slightly different approach by using not one but two AES-256bit crypto engines (XTS algorithm and FIPS 140-2 validated CBC algorithm) and a large backlit LCD touch screen that features an alphanumeric rotating keypad which makes it practically impossible for people to know which keys/numbers you've been using mostly. The DL3 FE however is a dual authentication type device so aside the alphanumeric rotating keypad of the LCD touch screen you can also opt for the RFID version (contains two RFID tags) for an even higher degree of protection (and that's also something we haven't seen by similar products). So, time to check the DL3 FE out and see exactly what it offers.