Тест скорости Addonics CipherChain

Addonics CipherChain — аппаратный вариант шифрования информации на лету, с помощью алгоритма AES-256. О нем я писал в этой статье.

Тестирование проводилось на данном железе:

Жесткий диск: HGST HTS541010A7E630
ЦП: QuadCore AMD FX-4350
Системная плата: MSI 970A-G46 (MS-7693)
Чипсет системной платы: AMD 970, AMD K15
Системная память: 12237 МБ (DDR3 SDRAM)
- DIMM1: Kingston 9905402-589.A00LF 2 ГБ DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM
- DIMM2: Kingston 9905402-589.A00LF 2 ГБ DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM
- DIMM4: Kingston 99U5471-054.A00LF 8 ГБ DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM
Видеоадаптер: AMD Radeon HD 6450 (1 ГБ)

Для начала фото самого оборудования:

Тест с помощью AIDA64

Начал с теста жесткого диска с помощью программы AIDA64. Носитель подключен напрямую в материнскую плату, без использования платы от Addonics:

Далее добавляем CipherChain по этой схеме:

Получаем эти результаты:

Получаем идентичные результаты, за исключением пункта Buffered Read. Это тест на чтение буфера.

Тест с помощью CrystalDiskMark

Тест жесткого диска с помощью программы CrystalDiskMark, без CipherChain:

Тест диска с использованием CipherChain:

Разницы практически нет.

Это были синтетические тесты, опираться на которые не стоит. Далее тест с помощью копирования файла большого объема.

Копируем файл

Копирование 1 файла, размером более 5,5Гб, через файловый менеджер Far. Копирование производится с другого жесткого диска, подключенного по SATA.

На всю процедуру ушло 43 секунды.

Копирование того же файла, с того же диска, на тестируемый жесткий диск HGST, подключенный через Addonics ChipherChain:

Два раза копирование зависало на несколько секунд, по итогу имеем 1 минуту 50 секунд. Тест проводился на разных платах ChipherChain, время всегда около 2 минут, так что вариант с неисправностью отпадает.

Авторизуясь, вы даете согласие на обработку персональных данных.

Addonics CipherChain Hard Drive Encryption

We took a look last week at a thumb drive that offered unparalleled data security, and this time around, we’re taking a look at a similar product, but one that’s designed for PC use, whether in the office or at home. The CipherChain, from Addonics, is easy-to-install and operate, and secures your data using the ultra-secure AES 256-bit cipher.

Page 1 – Introduction

In last week’s look at Kingston’s DataTraveler Locker+ thumb drive, I stressed the importance of keeping personal data safe. There are a multitude of reasons why you should take this seriously, but the most important is security. No one, and I mean no one, other than yourself or a loved one should have access to your personal data, and for that reason, keeping your data safe deserves some attention.

I’d imagine that most of our regular readers are adept at using a PC, and probably understand the benefits of keeping data safe, and the downsides of the opposite, but for the layman PC user, also known as the vast majority, keeping personal data safe isn’t much of a concern at all. It takes only a few minutes of looking through a Facebook or MySpace profile to know what I mean.

It’s for reasons like this that those of us who do understand the major risks involved with being careless with our information should share the knowledge with others, especially our families and friends. It’s unfortunate that so many don’t take data security seriously, or realize the harm that not doing so could have.

That’s one reason I liked Kingston’s DT Locker+ so much. The company designed the product in such a way that if a malicious person ever found it (and let’s be honest, losing a thumb drive would not be difficult), they’d never, ever be able to access the data. What made it even better was the ease of use. All it required of you was a password each time you wanted to use the drive. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

There are a couple of other reasons why I liked Kingston’s product so much, and the same reasons apply to Addonics’ CipherChain to a T. First, the root of the device’s security is a hardware-based solution. This means that the process of encrypting your data, and the algorithm itself, is located on a chip, not in software. Not only does this make the device even harder to crack (as in hack, not literally), it would be faster as a result.

The product we looked at last week is a great solution for those who are mobile, but what about the important data at home, or in an office? There are an incredible number of similar solutions out there for hard drive encryption, software and hardware, but Addonics is by far one of the easiest, and even if you barely know your way around the inside of a PC, you should be able to install this without issue.

As seen in the official image above, and our photographs below, the CiperChain is one small product. It measures at just 41mm x 48.5mm x 8mm, so for all intents and purposes, it can be fit almost anywhere. One solution is seen below, where two CiperChains are placed side-by-side on a platform designed to be used in one of the PCI slots found at the back of your PC.

Two more solutions are seen below. One mount is designed for a slim-line CD bay, while the other pops into a floppy drive bay (finally, a good use for one of those things!). These aren’t the only options, so you can be sure that fitting one into your PC will be no issue at all. For those who will be turning their machines off often, keeping the CipherChain in a front bay is probably the best idea, as getting in behind the machine to plug the required key in is not going to be too much fun after awhile.

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Below is an even closer look at the CipherChain, and for the most part, they feature a rather straight-forward design. Please note that most implementations, especially at the consumer level, would include a single CipherChain, not two, but Addonics sent me the higher-end version to show off its daisy chaining capabilities (see, it’s called “Chain” for a reason!). That’s right, if you aren’t content with protecting your data with a 256-bit AES encryption cipher, then you can add two for encryption of the encryption. No joke. Addonics states that there’s no theoretical limit to the number of CiperChains you can use on a single drive.

The blue-colored S-ATA port is what’s to connect to your motherboard or add-in card via a S-ATA cable, while the black-colored one connects the CipherChain directly to your hard drive or SSD. As you’d expect, the device requires power to operate, and for that, a 4-pin floppy-type power connector must be plugged in – one for each CipherChain.

You might have noticed the “Reset” buttons in an above screenshot, and the black little tab towards the left of the CiperChain in the above shot is what enables are disables the use of this. If enabled, you can take advantage of hot-swapping hard drives, if your computer and power supply support it (most don’t). To do this, you’d simply hit the reset switch, which powers the CipherChain off, plug in the new drive, and then hit the reset switch again to re-initialize it.

All of the packaged solutions Addonics sells includes the three accessories seen below. There’s of course a single-drive S-ATA cable, 4-Pin Molex to 4-Pin Floppy power adapter, and also the two mini-USB “keys”… it’s what you plug into a CipherChain in order to utilize the device, and access your data. These two keys come straight from Addonics with unique keys built-in, and you are unable to change them unless you have the special product used to either create or duplicate these keys (it’s $999, so it’s not for everyone).

In the case of our particular sample, where two CipherChains are included, you’ll receive a total of four keys, each set with different codes. If you’re to take advantage of both CipherChains on a single drive, that means that one key from each set must be plugged into the respective device in order to access the data. If only one is plugged in, the drive won’t even be recognizable by the PC. Needless to say, it’s extremely important that one key from each set be stored in a safe place, because if you lose both, the data on that hard drive is gone, with no chance of recovery. That’s right… none.

Let’s move onto the installation, performance testing, and then my final thoughts.

Addonics® Dual CipherChain Encrypt Your Data

Introduction

There are many situations where strong encryption of data is needed. Software encryption is widely used, but requires you to remember a password or some long string of random characters. As a Computer Resource Specialist I was often tasked with protecting data. I used to work in a hospital for the department of Pathology. The information that needed encryption was often sensitive patient information. In Pathology you don’t only deal with deceased patients, more often you have information containing a patients further treatment of say cancer. Most of the Doctors I have worked with are brilliant medical minds, but computers a different matter all together. As a doctor they have several passwords needed to get to patient information. Information, which is protected by the HIPAA. Therefore I spend a lot of time searching for the best security solutions. For hard drive encryption this meant that doctors had to remember the password to get in their external drives, used to carry patient information on. I spend a lot of hours recovering data from secure back-up locations to external drives because a Doctor forgot their password to the drive. Beside the password issues there was also a problem with them having to familiarize themselves with the encryption software I presented to them.

If I would have had the CipherChain line of products by Addonics back then, I would have saved myself and the doctors a lot of time.

What Is The Dual CipherChain?

Addonics Dual CipherChain is an AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) 256-bit (per card) hardware solution for encrypting entire hard drives, RAID solutions, or even servers. The Dual CipherChain is, as the name says, a two card option. Addonics also sells single units. The CipherChain can be daisy linked, and this is why when you buy the Dual CipherChain you won’t get just 256-bit but 512-bit encryption. The modules used for this are so small they could even be built into a laptop.

How Does It Work?

The Dual CipherChain uses a fast cryptology engine, the ENOVA® X-Wall MX-256, which is NIST & CES certified. This engine uses AES encryption to encrypt entire drives. Simply said. AES uses mathematical formulas and algorithms to come to, in this case, a 256-bit key. To explain in detail how AES or encryption works is outside of the scope of this article.

The CipherChain uses keys, a little hardware key with a male mini USB connector, and the circuit board has a female USB connector on it. This is the KEY. The only thing you have to do is stick this key in the CipherChain, connect the circuit board to the computer using SATA, connect the hard drive, and turn everything on. BACK UP OUR DATA on the drive you are going to use. The CipherChain will now delete all the data on the hard drive and encrypt it. Now you are ready to re-create the partition table (yes it really destroyed all the data), create the first partition, and load the data back on the drive.

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One of the key features of the CipherChain is that the engine is fast. I didn’t notice any speed decrease in data transfers; the speeds measured are what you would expect of an external USB hard drive. (Speeds were measured with ATTO Disk Benchmark.)

Conclusion

There are many situations where the Dual CipherChain could be used. An out-of-state server installation is now easily secured, install the software and data on the server. Unplug the Cipher key, ship the server and fly out with the key in our pocket. The data is safe during shipping.

Reference

About Addonics

Addonics Technologies Inc. designs, manufactures and markets a broad line of external and mobile storage products. Addonics headquarters are in San José, California.

Addonics CipherChain ExpressCard Review

The Addonics CipherChain ExpressCard gives your ExpressCard 34/54-equipped notebook the ability to connect to eSATA or USB external storage devices. Additionally, when using an eSATA drive, the Addonics card can provide hardware-based AES 256-bit full-disk encryption. In this brief review we put this Addonics device through some quick tests to make sure it works as advertised.

The box contains the ExpressCard, two cipher keys and a sheet of instructions. You need to supply your own external hard drive or SSD. During our test, we used an OCZ Vertex 2 inside an eSATA enclosure. The included cipher keys are extremely important to keep track of as you won’t be able to access your encrypted drive without one of them inserted into the ExpressCard. Two keys are included so that you have a spare – so be smart and put the backup someplace safe. If you lose both keys, you’re out of luck. You can send a cipher key back to Addonics for them to duplicate or you can buy an optional duplicating device if you need.

The card itself is pretty straightforward. Three LEDs provide status information – LEDs for “Standard HDD”, “Cipher HDD”, and “Cipher Key” provide information about the mode in which the card is operating. A cipher switch can be toggled by using the tip of a pen. The hybrid eSATA/USB port to connect a drive and the mini-USB port to insert the cipher key are on the end of the card.

Card installation on my Windows 7 based Thinkpad T510 was easy. Driver installation happened automatically. If you have driver problems, it can be found on the Addonics website. The card supports Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 2008. If you follow the directions, you’ll have no problems. It’s important to note that the ExpressCard won’t be “detected” until you actually plugin the external drive.

Operation is also straightforward. If you want to use the drive as an encrypted drive, make sure the cipher key is inserted and the cipher switch is in the depressed, “on” position. You will have to re-initialize and reformat the drive the first time since it probably hasn’t been encrypted before. Once these steps are done, your storage device will show up in your list of drives and you can transfer data as you normally would. Encryption happens automatically and transparently.

If you want to use an unencrypted data device simply make sure that the cipher key is not inserted and the cipher switch is in the “off” position. You’ll have to disconnect the drive before any mode changes are applied.

Also note that you cannot use encryption while connecting a storage device using the USB interface.

As with any full-disk encryption, if you connect an encrypted drive while the encryption mode of the ExpressCard is disabled, the drive will not show up in Windows Explorer as it would need to be reinitialized and reformatted.

Performance wise, we ran some quick synthetic benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark. There were no significant differences in transfer speeds when using the drive as an encrypted drive or as a non-encrypted drive.

Conclusion

If you want to encrypt the data on an external eSATA drive and you use a Windows-based system, the Addonics CyperChain ExpressCard is a no-nonsense solution to achieve that. The device is easy to setup and it works well – without an impact to data transfer speeds. Having to keep track of an external cipher key may be a challenge for some, but it removes the need to have any sort of software to handle passwords.

Pros

Easy setup
No impact on data transfer when encrypted or not encrypted

Cons

External cipher keys may be easy to lost/misplace for some (you know who you are)
No encryption for USB-connected storage devices.

SPEEDTEST — Проверка скорости интернета

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