The Bottom Line
Early this year, we had our first look at iStorage when they sent over their dataShur flash drive. Coming away from that article I contacted them about their 2.5" drive lineup and today we have the diskashur 2 in the lab for review.
iStorage is all about drive security and that is very prevalent in the diskashur product lineup. The model we have in-house is the diskashur2 but they also have an SSD and Pro lineup for those wanting quicker drives or added features. The diskashur2 lineup is aimed at consumers wanting to secure their data on the go via an alphanumeric keypad on the front of the unit. This unit is secured with AES-XTC 256bit encryption along with being FIPS PUB 197 validated. In addition, we have an IP56 rating for dust and water protection along with being OS and platform independent. Performance is rated at 140 MB/s read and write and utilizes a USB 3.0 connection.
Compatibility includes Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome and Android operating systems. MSRP of the diskashur 2 in the 2TB capacity comes in at $387.99 with a two-year warranty.
Packaging is full of marketing detail on the drive while also housing an image to the right. Capacity is listed on the left in bold print.
In the scope of delivery, the drive is delivered in a carrying case along with reading materials to aid in setup.
Our sample came in the blue color scheme with subtle branding at the top. The keypad buttons are a firm but soft plastic and the USB 3.0 cable is built in on the right.
The backside houses regulatory information along with capacity and encryption details.
Here we have the USB 3.0 port and cable attached to the enclosure.
The 2TB diskashur 2 offers 1.81TB of usable space and is formatted in the NTFS filesystem.
ATTO was our first run through a benchmark and seen below the diskashur was able to bring in a peak of 132 MB/s read and 137 MB/s write.
CDM was our second choice and as seen above, we brought in similar results at 132 MB/s read and 135 MB/s write QD32.
Having tested our second iStorage solution this year I'm quite happy with what I have seen. The build quality of the diskashur is quite good but again I don't care for plastic enclosures when dealing with high-security devices, but they have added in both dust and water protection along with going through FIPS certification with this device. Capacity options are plenty with this lineup reaching from 500GB to 5TB with four color options.
Performance is on par with marketing specification for a 2TB 5400RPM drive, we were able to reach just shy of 140 MB/s in our testing with 136 MB/s in ATTO and 134 MB/s in CDM. That said, this drive isn't all about its performance but rather the features and that's where iStorage has gone all out with its Brute Force Defense, Self-Destruct and Drive Reset features to combat data theft and even further epoxy coating all of the electronics.
With all of those features comes a price and iStorage does request a premium for its 2TB product tested here today and all others in the lineup. At $289 GBP or $389 USD, the 2TB diskashur2 is easily the most expensive external HDD solution I have tested in this capacity but to some, the features may certainly be worth it.
Tyler's Test System Specifications
- Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IX Hero (buy from Amazon)
- CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K (buy from Amazon) / (Read our Review)
- Memory: G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
- Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Hybrid (buy from Amazon)
- OS Storage: Intel 730 480GB SSD (buy from Amazon) / (Read our Review)
- Secondary Storage: MyDigitalSSD BP5 512GB SSD (buy from Amazon)
- Case: EVGA DG-86 (buy from Amazon)
- Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750 P2 (buy from Amazon)
- Networking: ASUS PCE-AC88 AC3100 (buy from Amazon)
- Networking: ASUS ROG 10G Express
- Networking: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)