INTRODUCTION

   Mobile storage needs increase by the day and although for the majority of consumers out there portable hard drives offer the best balance between performance and capacity along with the best price and performance ratio there are always those who place performance above all else. For those consumers and professionals manufacturers brought the much faster SSDs (solid state drives) to the mobile market which especially today can achieve performance results several times higher than portable hard drives. With portable SSDs gaining popularity among casual consumers and professionals alike it was just a matter of time before hardware encrypted drive manufacturers also released SSD based models into the market and since our good friends over at iStorage also have one such line today with us we have their diskAshur PRO2 512GB PIN authenticated Portable SSD.

   iStorage is the trusted global leader of award winning PIN authenticated, hardware encrypted data storage devices. Delivering the most innovative products to securely store and protect data to military specified encryption levels; safeguarding valuable business information whilst ensuring compliance to regulations and directives.

   Just like all the previous products we've reviewed by iStorage the diskAshur PRO2 is also a tamper-proof (protected against brute attacks, external tamper, bypass laser attacks and fault injections) PIN authenticated ((platform/device independent / 7-15 digit codes) USB 3.1 portable drive (currently available in 500GB/1TB/2TB/3TB/4TB/5TB for the HDD line and 128/256/512/1TB/2TB/4TB for the SSD line) that features real-time military grade FIPS PUB 197 validated AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption (FIPS 140-2 Level 2-3/NCSC CPA/NLNCSA BSPA/NATO Restricted Certified). Safety/security measures however once again expand into other areas of the drive so leaving out the usual epoxy covered keypad (makes it virtually impossible for people to tell which have been used) and the super tough epoxy resin layer placed over its interior components (virtually impossible to remove without causing severe damage) the enclosure of the diskAshur PRO2 is also IP56 certified (dust and water resistant). For all of you who may be wondering as to what SSD models iStorage is using for their diskAshur PRO2 line our sample arrived with the SU800 model by ADATA (Silicon Motion SM2258 NAND controller with 3D TLC NAND).