Crystal Group maximizes physical and data protections for military applications with new NVMe M.2 drive

The new NVMe M.2 drive integrates proprietary Crystal Group ruggedization techniques with the tamper-evident Seagate Barracuda 515 SSD to meet DoD cybersecurity and environmental operating requirements in a single solution.

HIAWATHA, IOWA, September 21, 2022Crystal Group, Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged computer and electronic hardware, announced today the release of a ruggedized and tamper-proof NVMe M.2 drive validated across their portfolio of rugged, high-performance compute solutions for tactical edge applications.

Using new, proprietary Crystal Group ruggedization techniques on the tamper-evident Seagate BarraCuda 515 solid state drive (SSD) extends the drive’s capabilities to military platforms by meeting strict U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) cybersecurity and environmental operating requirements.

“Marrying advanced data security features with comprehensive environmental standards streamlines two critical performance needs for tactical edge applications into one solution,” said Todd Prouty, senior business development manager at Crystal Group. “Integrating these capabilities at both the drive level and hardware level provides maximum physical and data protections for long-life, seamless compute performance and accuracy in and across all domains.”

Ruggedized NVMe M.2 drives after passing environmental testing for salt fog based on MIL-STD-810G1, Method 509.6 requirements.

Primary safeguards for sensitive and classified data include:

  • FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified SSD
  • Common Criteria certification with full disk encryption solution
  • TPG Opal compliant self-encryption
  • TAA compliant
  • Block-level data destruction verification

In addition to meeting or exceeding common MIL-STD-810 environmental test standards, such as temperature, vibration, shock and humidity, the BarraCuda 515 SSDs profile is also salt fog compliant. Salt fog resilience is critical for applications like U.S. Navy deployments, which are exposed to highly corrosive environments.

“Seagate Government Solutions is dedicated to supporting our long-term partnership with Crystal Group. We at SGS see this conformal-coated, secure M.2 device as answering a long-standing requirement in rugged applications for the Government.” said Mike Moritzkat, CEO and managing director of Seagate Government Solutions.

To address the broad variety of compute needs across different tactical edge platforms and applications, this rugged, tamper-evident NVMe M.2 drive can be used on any form factor from Crystal Group’s portfolio of rugged, high-performance compute solutions. Crystal Group is the only rugged solutions provider to offer this combination of environmental robustness and security protection at the SSD and hardware levels.

About Crystal Group, Inc.

Crystal Group, Inc. is a leading provider of high-performance, rugged compute solutions for defense, government, and industrial markets. Founded in 1987, this small, employee-owned business specializes in the design, customization, build and testing of rugged servers, embedded computers, networking devices, data storage and displays for high reliability in harsh environments.

Crystal Group’s integrated solutions meet or exceed IEEE, IEC, and military standards, including MIL-STD-810, 167-1, 461, and MIL-S-901, to bring seamless, real-time artificial intelligence, autonomy and cybersecurity to demanding edge applications. All products are manufactured in the company’s U.S. facility, certified to ISO 9001:2015/AS9100D standards and are backed by a five-plus-year warranty.

©2022 Crystal Group, Inc. All rights reserved. All marks are property of their respective owners. Design and specifications are subject to change.