KingstonIronkey Vault Privacy 50 USB-C 512GB Encrypted Flash Drive | FIPS 197 Certified | XTS-AES 256-bit | BadUSB and Brute Force Protection | Mult-Password Option | IKVP50C/512GB

Great product. Great company. Kingston deserves your business and money. Their encrypted flash drives are quite expensive, this is not a ploy or gimmick. If you want your product to truly to be secured, it must undergo scrutinous audits, security test, etc. in order to be able to certify and attest it provides a high standard of security. These types of products are the ones you do not want to skimp out on, for reasons far too long to explain.What you must do in order to use this product successfully:1. Read their entire manual/user guide for the specific product on their website. That's right, the entire thing. Failure to do so is actually setting yourself up for the worst possible situation: complete deletion of your data. No company should be able to reset or even maintain data on your password for these types of products. That's the entire point, and any review giving less than five stars either didn't read how to use the product they are buying, or think that because this requires "work" to set up that it should be docked off stars. In other words they are completely unreliable reviews.2. Do every recommendation advised in the user guide. That mean's making the two different accounts, even if you're the only one who will be accessing the device. You will not be offered the full features if you do not do this.3. Do not store admin or one time passwords ANYWHERE in digital format. Write these down carefully, optionally multiple times, and store them in a secure location that only YOU will have access to. If you can't understand why this is necessary, then that is on you and you alone.4. Handle the device with the same care you would if you were holding the Mona Lisa. Avoid any potential scenarios that could damage the device to the best of your ability.4a (optional, but STRONGLY recommended). Buy an additional product that is either the same as this, or a variation of an encrypted flash drive offered by Kingston. Having two secure devices that maintain the same data by being backed up to both drives regularly will exponentially lessen the probability of losing all your important data. If your budget does not allow for this at the current time I understand, but make it a goal to acquire another Kingston encrypted-USB sooner rather than later.If parts of the manual on their site are confusing or hard to understand, email their support team in order to clarify the information. I cannot stress enough that if you want this product to be a lasting solution, you must understand how it works.In conclusion I just want to say that the idea of total and complete security online is a myth. It is not a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it, no matter how much a service markets itself as the silver bullet. This is the reality, and if you are interested in this product because you are privacy conscious, this is the best piece of insight I can give you.

Great

Excellent encrypted flash drive. Does what it is supposed to do. Easy to set up and customize.

I carried one of the original IronKey D2s for over 15 years before it failed. I became aware of Ironkey projects when working for a consulting company. We were dealing with sensitive CAD data that we did not want to transfer over the internet. The CAD data was stored on the IronKey, which was delivered by courier to the customer. While this particular device is a notch below the D2's level of security, it is more than adequate for consumer use. It can be used to store URLs and associated passwords, medical data, etc.

This variant of the IronKey line has the option to set up an administrative password and a user password (which the user can later change). So while my user can securely move data and back it up, if they left the company I would be able to access the data and set a new password for the next person. Transfer speeds are also pretty fabulous.

Update: After contacting them, they RMAed the device and returned the entire amount I paid through Amazon.TL,DR:Do not rely on this version of IronKey as your sole/primary storage of data. My suggestion is to refrain from purchasing this altogether. Stick with the original versions, while they are still available.Information:I plugged in my IronKey this morning and it went to the device initialization screen - meaning that all of my data is now lost. There is nothing abnormal about my use of this key, versus my others. This key is used in a multiple backup/sync rotation, so the original source data is not lost - only the newest data I have added to this one particular key. Luckily I know the little data that was added/changed, so not all is lost. Had it been my only copy of my files then this would be catastrophic - SO BE WARY! This particular key has only been used on four computers (two laptops and two desktops).I have one key which has been used *hundreds* of times over the past 15 years. The others were newly purchased in the past 5 to 10 years, but were manufactured prior to this new version - also, they are the original metal casing versions.I am a 15+ year user of IronKeys - the original metal versions are the only versions with which I have had ZERO issues. I have several of them.If you are purchasing this as a primary/sole encrypted device then I would be VERY wary. Purchase duplicates, or purchase the original versions (the silver or black metal casing). My actual suggestion is to refrain from purchasing this device at all. I will probably physically destroy this device since I am probably past any return policies - I will be checking into that.

Had to call customer service to get this one going. There's a known issue that makes it look like its not working. For us normal people, these technical issues need to be figured out by the manufacturer. Once instructed on what to do, this product works as advertised. In short, if you get stuck, restart your computer and make sure you exit out of Ironkey via the toolbar at the upper right top of the apple acreen!

Setting this up was not terribly difficult. I like the pass phrase feature. It appears robust.6 month update: September 2024. We made extensive use of this device and their “vault” version while in Central Asia over the summer. While the Vault holds a LOT more information this device was used extensively in an Apple MacBook Pro with USB-C. This device has a LOT more variables than the Vault for establishing a password (lower case letters and special characters)… and tolerates ridiculously long pass phrases. Ultimately, we used this a LOT more for working projects and the Vault for long term storage. This is an outstanding device that held up to frequent use on foreign soil.