When it comes to securing your data, you shouldn’t compromise on quality or security.

IronKey external hard drives have been proven to be the most secure external storage devices on the market, featuring AES 256-bit hardware encryption and being the first external hard drives to be FIPS 140-2 Level 3 Validated.

But there are a few different ones out there. So how do you know which one is right for your purposes?

Size

The first thing you need to consider is how much data you need to store. You can get IronKey hard drives in three sizes: 320 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB.

Here is a rough calculation of how much can be stored in 300 GB of space:

20,000 high-quality JPEG files (pictures)
—or—
75 complete DVDs
—or—
37,000 high-quality, 5 minute, MP3 songs
—or—
900 good-quality, 10 minute, AVI files (videos)
—or—
8,000 Youtube videos (pretty low quality usually, max 10 minutes most are less than 5)
—or—
1,000+ programs + data (hard to calculate this one).

When it comes to storage space, more is always better. But you should also be thinking about the type of files you’re keeping secure. Primarily text files are going to take up the least amount of space while photos will take up slightly more and videos more than that. (And the quality of photos and video will also affect the size of the files.)

Regardless of what type of files you are storing, you will be able to check the size of the file. Unless it’s a really high quality video, the file size will likely be expressed in MegaBytes (MB).

Security

The next thing you have to consider is exactly how secure you need the hard drive to be. IronKey has three models of hard drives: H80, H100 and H200.

All three models have these features:

• AES: 256-bit hardware encryption
• Tough, durable, waterproof cover
• Zero footprint left on any computers they integrate with

Only the H100 and H200 have the following features:

• FIPS 140-2 Level 3 Validated Cryptographic Processor
• Malware Protection
• Centralized management software that includes: IronKey ACCESS Enterprise & McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator

Only the H200 has the following feature:

• Fingerprint swipe pad for fingerprint identification

So do you think you’ll need the added security of a fingerpad? Remember, with each additional security measure, price goes up. Which brings us to the third thing you need to consider …

Price

Everyone has a budget. So it’s important to figure out what your budget is, as it could very well be the deciding factor on which IronKey hard drive you purchase.

Regardless of which model you choose to go with, always deal with an authorized IronKey retailer to ensure all warranties area valid.