Kanguru has been in business since 1992, but made a huge leap into the data storage business in 1993 by creating the 20mb external Kanguru Disk hard drive. Now they have a large stable of flash drives, with feature sets for just about any demographic you can think of. Their latest line of flash drives dubbed the ‘Kanguru Defender’ are geared towards businesses and individuals seeking to safely secure their data, especially when traveling. On February 1st, they announced the next stage in the Kanguru Defender series, the ‘Pro’ edition.
Package Contents: When unpacking the Kanguru Defender Pro, we found it contained the drive itself, the ‘Kanguru Drivers & Manuals CD’, a USB extension cable, a lanyard, and registration paperwork. The CD that accompanied the unit did not, in fact, have drivers or manuals on it. It contained pdf registration paperwork for both Defender models (std and Pro). The nice thing about the drive is that it does not require drivers anyway, but it was a bit confusing to not find them on the labeled disk. The USB extension cable is a brilliant addition to the package. It will allow you to snake a hard to reach USB port from your machine around to an easy-to-reach place on your desk, for example. This is something flash drive makers should be more proactive in providing and it shows good forethought on Kanguru’s part. The lanyard is also a handy addition, as the loop that could possibly be used for your key chain was too narrow to be used with mine – being so, that lanyard is my only option. However, the lanyard works very well.
Design/Construction: The Kanguru Defender Pro features a mostly ‘tamper-proof’ aluminum casing. I say ‘mostly’ because while it’s aluminum body feels very rugged and durable, the hard plastic butt cap feels like it would crack if stepped on or had a sharp impact. The data port end-cap is also a plastic that feels like it would crack if stepped on. Having aluminum versions of these plastic pieces would make the outer casing virtually impregnable and is something we would like to see in the next generation of Defender. The drive is roughly 2.5 inches long and weighs in at a much smaller form factor and weight than most secure drives such as the IronKey, for example. This makes the drive more carefree in its transportation, as hanging from the lanyard it almost feels like you don’t have anything around your neck at all. Kanguru offers the drive in 4 stock colors and will customize drives with personalized logos or text for an additional fee.
Installation & Usage: Setting the Defender Pro up was a snap, and takes place the first time you insert the drive into a computer. The Kanguru Defender Manager application will open (loaded from the drive – no pc software required) and ask you to assign the flash drive a password. This password is used anytime the drive is plugged into a machine, PC-independent. If the user enters the wrong password, the drive does not allow access to itself.
Security: Speaking of drive security, aside from the aforementioned password protection, the drive features an external switch that write-protects the drive for added security against accidental erasure. The encryption technology used in this drive is of the 256-bit AES variety, which is tried and true, having been used in most of the secure flash drives on the market.
Performance: The main difference between the standard and ‘Pro’ Defenders is the type of memory used in the drive. The standard Defender uses MLC NAND memory, providing an advertised write speed of 7MB/s and read speed of 15MB/s. The ‘Pro’ drive uses SLC NAND memory providing an advertised write speed of 15MB/s and read speed of 30MB/s. We took the Defender Pro to the HD Tune and HD Tach benchmarking programs to determine whether or not it lives up to the touted speeds (graphs in gallery). HD Tune reported an average read speed of 28.2MB/s and HD Tach reported the average to be 28.7MB/s. Write speeds were tested with a series of large and small files. Our results ran from 12.8MB/s to 14.5MB/s, all within an acceptable range of the advertised speed. In short, this drive is one fast mover.
Conclusion: The Kanguru Defender Pro flash drive exudes excellent security features while also providing an exceptional transfer rate. Its rugged casing, despite its minor annoyances, should hold up a long time keeping your data safe and secure.
