CONCLUSION

   Because of their on-the-fly hardware encryption secure portable drives always fall behind in terms of performance to regular models so topping out at 250MB/s in both reads and writes was not unexpected for the IronKey Vault Privacy 80ES (did surpass that number however, alas not by much). That being said I can’t figure out why Kingston didn’t choose a faster M.2 PCIe drive to at least offer even speeds of up to 1000MB/s for people who may want the best transfer rates. On top of that aside the DL3 FE model by DataLocker which already counts many years in the market the Vault Privacy also falls behind every other model in my charts (comes very close to the very similar DL4 FE however). That being said I am well aware that performance is not the first thing people look when out to get a secure drive and in terms of encryption the IronKey Vault Privacy 80ES offers pretty much what you’d expect from such a product. Again, I am no hacker so I can only use specific software to try and gain access to secure drives (so basically if you have any recommendations of another test feel free to reach out). The color touch screen is also a nice touch, yes It may not be as durable as regular keys but it looks great and also allows you to control the drive and its features wish ease.

   Currently retailing for USD264.29 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 349.89Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) the IronKey Vault Privacy 480GB model is certainly quite expensive, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Price aside however this model has pretty much everything from great hardware encryption and an zinc alloy enclosure to an touch screen input and numerous screen controlled features and that’s why it gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Build Quality
- PIN Authentication
- Security Measures (FIPS 197 XTS AES 256-bit Hardware Encryption / Brute Force Protection / Auto Lock / Read Only / Secure Erase / BadUSB Protection)
- Good Performance
- Color LCD Touch Screen
- Alphanumeric Rotating Keypad
- 3 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (EU)

CONS

- Price (USA)
- Color LCD Screen Durability?