Kingston IronKey Keypad 200 64GB Review

Kingston has a range of products in its encrypted drive portfolio but the latest drive to join the KeyPad range is probably the most secure to date. The IronKey Keypad 200 has an arsenal of features to protect vital data that is stored on it, from protected keys to covered internal components to stop them from being tampered with.

The IronKey Keypad 200 uses a built-in rechargeable battery (you may have to recharge the battery before use) to unlock the drive without resorting to any software. The drive can be used in any system that supports a USB type-A mass storage device regardless of the OS. The IronKey Keypad 200 range is made up of five capacities; 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.

Kingston rates the performance of the drive as up to 145MB/s and 115MB/s for reads and writes respectively. We could confirm both those figures and even improve on them under benchmarking. All three benchmarks used; ATTO, AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark 8 produced read/write speeds that were faster than the official ratings. The fastest read speed we saw was 170MB/s from the Peak Performance profile of CrystalDiskMark 8, while under the default CrystalDiskMark 8 test we saw the fastest write speed of 144MB/s.

One side of the drive holds the 10-key keypad, a key button and three LEDs. The LED under the key button at one end of the drive glows blue when the drive is connected to a USB port. The two other LEDs are at the other end of the drive and indicate the state of the drive – red for locked and green for unlocked. The drive comes with a protective sleeve to keep the 10-key keypad safe when the drive is not being used.

To use the drive, you press the key button then type in your PIN code (you have around 10 secs to do this), then press the key button again and within 30 seconds insert the drive into a USB slot to use it. Once finished with the drive, save the data on the drive and unplug it; the act of unplugging the flash drive locks it.

Kingston's IronKey Keypad 200 is FIPS 140-3 Level 3 (pending) certified and is, at least according to Kingston, the industry’s first drive to do so. FIPS 140-3 Level 3 is a military-grade security standard and to help meet it the drive has got some serious physical enhancements. These include the internal circuitry and components being covered with a special epoxy so it is almost impossible to remove them without damaging them in the process while the keys on the keypad are protected from fingerprint analysis by a layer of polymer across the whole keypad.

The drive has two PIN options, Admin and User. Admin can restore a user PIN if the drive has been locked due to an incorrect PIN number being entered ten consecutive times, the drive is locked but the data remains on the drive. However, if the admin then enters a wrong PIN number ten consecutive times then it's game over as the nuclear option in the form of Brute Force attack protection kicks in. The drive is then crypto-erased, so both PINs, the encryption key AND all the data will be permanently deleted and the drive defaulted back to factory settings and will need formatting before it can be used again.

The IronKey Keypad 200 supports two levels of Read-Only (Write Protect) modes, Global and session-only. Global is set up by Admin and can be session-based or Read-Only mode until reset. Session-only modes can bet set up by both Admin and users. These Read-Only modes protect the drive from BadUSB which can overwrite the firmware on a USB device with a malicious code that once inserted into another device can plant malware or steal information, and do it while avoiding any anti-virus software.

The drive is also certified to IP57 rating for dust and water protection. The first digit of the rating means that is dust resistant while the second means that it's waterproof up to 1 meter.

We found the 64GB Kingston IronKey Keypad 200 on CCL for £149.44 (inc VAT) HERE.

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Pros

• Bullet-proof data protection.
• Military-level encryption.
• Pretty good read speeds.

Cons

• Hefty price tag.

KitGuru says: If you are one of those that wouldn't touch the cloud with a bargepole but still have a need to transport very sensitive data around, then Kingston's latest flash drive might be just what you are looking for.

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