I have used FTK 1.7 and 1.8 in the past but am more of an EnCase user. I have been thinking of picking up a copy of FTK to have around and found a version of 1.62. Having never used this version, is it worth buying? If so, what would be a fair price? It comes with the dongle and manual too.
Also, what, if any, are the implications to buying used software such as FTK or EnCase in terms of proper licensing?
Greetings,
Both Guidance and Access Data allow users to transfer licenses. The seller might need to confirm the transfer with the company.
The usefulness of 1.62 probably depends on what you're trying to do with it and how you work. If you tend to extract information from an image for analysis with external tools, it might work well. I tend to do this a lot with EnCase and a bit less with FTK.
You could also ask AD what they'd charge to update the license. And the 1.62 license may work with 1.8 but please don't quote me on that.
The pricing depends a lot on you. How badly do you need it, how much can you afford, what would it cost to get the same functionality new. Since you can get X-Ways, new, for $800 (?), paying too much more than that for FTK if it cannot be upgraded to 1.8x very inexpensively would be hard for me to justify.
-David
The seller said it can be upgraded. For Dec. 2009 it is about $1800 and to Dec. 2010 it is about $2800. Sounds steep.
I usually copy/unerase files from EnCase and open them individually in FTK demo for certain things like index.dat and INFO2. I just don't know if it's worth buying the 1.62 when I have some use of the demo.
Greetings,
That does sound a bit steep.
For $1,800 you could buy X-Ways, Mount Image Pro, Net Analysis, and some other tools and still have some spare cash.
-David