FTK 2 - any verdicts yet?

Well I was almost officialy asked to wait with using this software in work till release of version 2.1, due some problems with software.

The following is a review I wrote for the American Lawyer Media online publication "EDD Update" (www.eddupdate.com). I wish I could have found more positives to share–and I hope you will respond with your own–but even as I write this I'm STILL waiting for the job I describe to finish….

Great piece! Hope you become a regular contributor to the forum.

Yes indeed, just to echo Jonathan's sentiments, thanks for sharing that Craig - very useful (if somewhat depressing news to anyone hoping to see more competition in this niche market).

SC Magazine just awarded FTK 2.0 a "Best Buy".

The experiences of the SC Magazine reviewer certainly do not mirror what I have experienced, nor what other posters have written about.

craigball,
Very well put. Please share with us anything else you find out.

What really hurt me was the fact, as Craig pointed out, was the ability to save all your case data to independent HDD's for better control and storage.

There were also cases where the client wanted all the work to be done on site. They did not want their data leaving the premisses. With FTK 2.0 that made it pretty much impossible. I completely removed FTK 2.0 and the Oracle database from my systems, using only FTK 1.72

Bithead,
SC magazine is a joke IMHO when it comes to those reviews. They rated Gargoyle extremely high and it's in my worthless pile next to FTK 2.0. I have a lot of respect for Peter Stephenson who typically does the reviews but man…they are way off base anymore.

Craig,
Thanks so much for sharing your article and I think we all agree with your sentiments.

hogfly,
I find SC Mag's reviews to be very odd. For example how does FTK compare to Paraben Device Seizure, other than they are both "forensic" tools?

Another thing is the pricing they show for some of the tools does not match the vendors MSRP. For example ProDiscover Forensic is not $13K it is their enterprise tool that is $13K, their Forensic version is under $2500. If it is a review of enterprise tools, compare similar tools (and prices).

Now I do not recognize all the tools they review, but if there are these types of glaring errors in the tools I am familiar with, it makes me wonder about their other reviews and coverage.

The pricing for FTK is $2,995, which is at the low end of the price spectrum, making this an excellent value.

😯

Two FTK 2.x reviews

http//commonscold.typepad.com/eddupdate/2008/05/ftk-20-product.html#more

http//ridethelightning.senseient.com/2008/05/craig-ball-beat.html

FTK 2.0.2, well a new era in Forensics? Possibly but not yet!

I'm relatively new to the field but have used FTK 1.x since day one. I have sat in the Office listening to others shouting "****ing Enca*e has crashed again" on a regular basis. I've only experienced one crash with FTK which Accessdata were quick to resolve (they picked out one file from the crash log which once avoided, completed without error).

So I was waiting with baited breath for version 2 to come out. The product came out in February after some considerable delay and in my humble opinion, should never have been released. FTK has now lost it's credibility in the workplace.

On the transition day course, the problems with FTK2 were highlighted. Quite by accident (???) we skipped the installation part (which although saved time, lost me so much time when installing at work), then proceeded to learn the better qualities of FTK 2.

I have to say that the interface is better than version 1.7x, even if a little slower. When I have managed to get FTK2 working, it did appear to find far more data than 1.7x or Encase. The Registry viewer is still the best available (again, in my opinion).

However, the main downfall is the reporting side. It cannot even be classed as poor. The PDF option, in theory such a good idea, beggars belief. A child could have come up with a better template.

I'm back to the tried and tested 1.72 so I can stand in the square box and hand on heart say I am confident in the data found. It may be some time before I have that same confidence in FTK 2.