Electronic Design

Apricorn's Aegis Padlock 3 (Fig. 1) is a secure, shock mounted 1 Tbyte USB 3.0 hard drive. It is a little larger than Seagate’s USB 3.0 BlackArmor PS 110 is a 7200-rpm, 500-Gbyte hard drive that I checked out over a year ago. Both deliver USB 3.0 performance but the Padlock 3 adds a water-resistant keyboard for entering your security code. No code. No data.

The sealed, epoxy coated Aegis Padlock 3 I checked out is a newer version of the USB 2.0 one that Joe Desposito looked at (see Two New Drives Feature Data Protection That's Easy To Use). They all use the same technology as Apricorn's Aegis Secure Key. A keypad is used to enter a code to unlock the encrypted drive. In the case of the Aegis Secure Key, the drive is a USB flash drive.

The big difference between the Secure Key and the Padlock 3, other than the storage technology, is that the Secure Key has a battery so the code can be entered before the drive is plugged in. The code is entered on the Padlock 3 after it is plugged into a USB port. The status LED goes green after the correct key is entered and the drives work as usual.

The Padlock 3 uses a 256-bit AES encryption hardware so the drive can transfer data at USB 3.0 speeds. This includes the ability to stream HD video or any other data for that matter.

The keycode can be 6 to 16 digits. There is an administrator keycode and additional codes for users, if desired. A user code provides access to data but it cannot be used to manage the drive. There is a also a "self destruct password" the effectively makes the drive contents inaccessible. This simply deletes the internal key so the encrypted data can no longer be read.

It is possible to reuse the drive at any time by resetting the system and setting a new admin password. The drive will need to be reformatted. Out of the box, the drive is formatted as an NTFS drive with a PDF file that contains the documentation. The drive supports any format and any host since the decryption key is entered using the keypad.

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