Guardonix USB 3.0
Guardonix USB3.0 Accelerator, Stabilizer, and Writeblocker
Description
Guardonix USB3.0
Accelerator, Stabilizer, and Writeblocker
A feature-rich writeblocker which enables Windows applications to work with damaged/unstable storage devices, accelerates flash storage acquisitions, and helps with triage by performing keyword searches in real time during imaging.
Standard Edition
Enables forensic acquisition of USB storage devices by blocking all write commands to preserve data integrity.
Helps prevent USB storage devices from being dropped by Windows due to bad sectors or other read instability issues.
Has a small form factor and works bus powered with most storage devices.
Provides short circuit protection for the source drive and allows manually turning power on/off.
Professional Edition
Accelerates acquisition speed of SSDs and other fast flash storage devices by an average of 30%, compared to a direct, writeblocker-free connection to USB3.0.
Enforces read timeout by hardware reset and/or repower, dramatically speeding up bad sector processing, which allows imaging highly degraded HDDs/SSDs.
Allows searching for specific keywords within the data going through the device in real time, and in most cases without reducing imaging speed.
ATA password & WD Smartware unlocking, access to HPA/DCO/AMAC data areas, graphical speed display, USB-SCSI error reporting, complete sector-level status information, and much more.
Guardonix is the latest release from DeepSpar, a Canadian manufacturer of professional data recovery equipment since 2004. Guardonix takes advantage of key functionality which was previously only offered by professional data recovery tools to help visualize, track, and control the data acquisition process.
Technical Data
| Standard | |
|---|---|
| Absolute Hardware Writeblocking | |
| Short circuit protection | |
| If the connected source drive has a short circuit then Guardonix will immediately cut off the power to reduce the probability of causing further damage. | |
| Stabilizes USB Connection | |
| USB protocol requires the PC and storage device to be in constant synchronization with one another. If the storage device fails to respond quickly enough, or responds irregularly due to bad sectors or other read instability issues then it may lose its current state and become desynchronized with the PC, causing Windows to freeze, crash, and/or drop the USB storage device. | |
| Guardonix hardware stands between the PC and storage device, making sure that the connection to the PC is always well-maintained, regardless of the storage device status. This way even if the storage device becomes desynchronized, only its connection to Guardonix hardware will be reinitialized, which will not have any impact on the PC, allowing data acquisition to proceed without interruption. Guardonix hardware maintains a live connection even if the storage device is physically disconnected during imaging. | |
| Automatically repowers unresponsive source drives - slowly | |
| If the source drive suddenly stops responding to all commands, as a last resort Guardonix will automatically repower it to seamlessly continue the data acquisition process. In Standard Edition this will happen after 60 seconds of non-response and in Professional Edition the time frame can be configured to 10, 30, or 60 seconds after hardware resets fail to restore readiness. | |
| USB-SCSI Error reporting display | |
| USB protocol includes an extensive error reporting system which allows the storage device to communicate its issues to the host, which Guardonix then reports in its log. | |
| Complete Logging | |
| A project folder is generated for every drive which contains the sector addresses of every successful read, failed read, write attempt, as well as USB-SCSI errors, the drive’s raw ATA DiskID, SCSI Inquiry Data, SCSI VPD Page Serial Number, and USB Descriptor Serial Number. In Professional Edition the drive’s raw S.M.A.R.T. logs can also be saved at any time, for example at the beginning and end of the imaging session to record whether the number of reallocations has changed. | |
| Manual control of source drive power | |
| Works bus powered | |
| Guardonix has very low power consumption, allowing it to work bus powered with all except the most power hungry USB HDDs, for which the provided 5V power supply does have to be connected. | |
| Shows current state | |
| Guardonix shows the current speed, drive status (idle, busy, disconnected), and sector address. | |
| Free Software/Firmware Updates |
