Ruggedized Internals

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Lifting the drive for inspection it becomes clear by the heft that this isn't your garden variety SSD from Amazon. The SSD has a solid feel to it due to its precision-machined aluminum alloy case.

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The rear of the case at first appears unremarkable, but closer inspection reveals some non-standard screws rarely seen in consumer SSDs.

These Torx screws were installed into the drive without normal thread locking to ease our ability to remove them and conduct the review. In actual deployments the screws will be thread locked, making them nearly impossible to remove with standard approaches.

As we start to open up the SSD, we can see that the case has a channel milled between the two sides of the case. This channel allows for gel fills that can seal the case for waterproofing purposes if the customer desires that option. These types of seals provide for moisture proofing in very humid environments and dustproofing for dry sandy environments.

Once we pop off the rear panel, we can observe the additional fasteners that hold the circuit board down securely. The eight additional fasteners hold this board down tightly. This makes the PCB extremely resistant to any type of vibration or G-Forces that would potentially cause the PCB to move out of place or crack.

We also notice the odd-looking pins that protrude from the front of the case. These headers are for different methods of secure erasing, which we will cover shortly.