This Cipher RAID Tower is a great solution for application that requires attaching multiple drives or a large capacity RAID volume to any system with reliable full disk encryption. Up to as many as five 3.5" hard drive can be connected to a system via a single cable to eSATA port or USB 3.0 / 2.0 port.. This Cipher RAID Towers is designed with bullet proof AES 256-bit full disk hardware encryption at less than half of the price of similar products in the market. Not only the data is highly secured by the strong AES 256-bit encryption, the Cipher RAID Tower is simple to use and easy to deploy. There is no software to install or special training required. The FIPS certified hardware crypto engine integrated inside the Cipher RAID Tower ensures the maximum performance of the hard drive. Other than the insertion of a cipher key during the initial power up, the Cipher RAID Tower operates and performs just the same as an ordinary RAID system. By using the Addonics NAS 4.0 adapter, this Cipher RAID Tower can be added onto any local area network as a secured Network Attached Storage device.

The Cipher RAID Tower comes with everything you need other than adding your choice of hard drive in any capacity. Drives are added and removed from the Cipher RAID Tower like tape cassette without the need of special drive tray or tool. By attaching to the Addonics NAS 4.0 adapter, this cipher tower can be instantly turned into a secured NAS on any local area network.

Designed with RAID Volume Encryption (RVE) architecture which costs less than the DLE (Drive Level Encryption) approach and is simpler to operate with only one encryption key to secure all the drives or the entire RAID volume. This Cipher RAID Tower supports maximum throughput up to 150 MB/sec.with full disk encryption

RVE encryption architecture illustration

Below is a summary of the PROs and CONs for DLE and RVE RAID encryption architectures:

• Install up to five 3.5" SATA hard drives of any capacity (drives not included)
• Connect to system via eSATA port or USB 3.0 port (cables included)
• RAID Volume Encryption (RVE), one cipher key per RAID volume or all five drives
• FIPS certified AES 256-bit crypto engine
• One cipher key for the entire RAID set
• Up to 5 drives per RAID set
• Built-in RAID accelerator - high performance
• Drives are added or removed like tape cartridge from each drive bay without any special tool
• Drives can be configured as RAID0 (Striping), RAID1 (Mirroring), RAID 5 (Parity), RAID10 (Mirrored Striped), JBOD (Concatenation), Clone Mode (N-Way Mirror) using built-in hardware RAID or as five individiual drives without RAID
• Individual drive setting requires connecting to Port Multiplier compatible eSATA controller or USB port
• Convert to a secured NAS by attaching to the LAN using Addonics NAS 4.0 adapter
• OS independent, can be used on any system.
• RAID diagnostic via LED lights.

Check Addonics host controller page for choices of PM compatible controller

Components list made up this model:
Storage Tower (STMPC-B with SCSI-I back panel), HPM-XA (AD5HPMSXA), 1 Snap-In Disk Array 5SA (AESN5DA35), CipherChain kit mounted on floppy bay (CC35MK1), 1 pair of AES 256-bit Cipher keys (AAENKEY256-2), 3 feet eSATA cable (AAESATA100C), USB 3.0 - eSATA adapter (ADU3ESA)

• Built-in five (5) Snap-in removable drive slots
• Maximum # of drives installable-
  • five 3.5" SATA hard drives or
  • five 2.5" SATA HDD/SSD using optional 2.5" - 3.5" drive adapter
• Encryption 
  • Encryption level - AES 256-bit
  • Architecture - RVE- one crypto engine per RAID volume
• Integrated Port Multiplier model (AD5HPMSXA)
• Support JBOD ( individual drive) mode when connects to PM compatible eSATA port
• eSATA port on back of unit, can convert to USB 3.0/2.0 with the included USB 3.0 - eSATA adapter (ADU3ESA)
• RAID set up via a set of dip switches acceesible from the back of the unit
• Drive access LED lights at the front for each hard drive 
• Drives are installed or removed from drive bay like tape cartridege with no special tool needed
• Hot swap support
• OS independent*