Using Mini-PC's for acquiring images

Looking for it to be mobile or stay in one location?

Hey guys,

We're look at using Mini-PC's that are able to run Deft or another forensic distro.

Has anyone else already got similar setups?

Currently been looking at these models as possibilities

Voyo V3
HYSTOU FMP04B
Beelink Z83
Lenovo ThinkCentre M700
MSI Cubi N-008XEU
ASRock Beebox
MSI Cubi-N-001BEU

I don't think that all devices belong to the same "class", the Lenovo one, which is - I believe - the Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny Desktop
http//shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/desktops/thinkcentre/m-series-tiny/m700/
is (or pretends to be) a more "serious" piece of hardware (and it is actually bigger than most the other ones), while - say - the Beebox seems more like a TV-stick on steroids…

Also price may be an issue.

Personally I would go for something "tougher" and that is already shipped with a Linux of some kind (as this will guarantee that appropriate drivers for the hardware exist in Linux), and possibly a configurable system *like* (only as a couple of examples)
http//zareason.com/shop/Zini-1550.html
http//www.logicsupply.com/cl100/
Or a manufacturer with a wider range (where you might more easily find something suitable, another couple examples)
https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/overview
http//www.gigabyte.com/products/list.aspx?s=47&ck=104

jaclaz

Panasonic Toughbook rugged laptops and Toughpad durable tablets look also cool. I used Panasonic Toughbook rugged laptops in the Windows XP era, with 100% satisfaction!

I don't know about the Linux support of Panasonic Toughbooks these days. Also, they are a bit pricey, but you get exactly what they promise.

If you work fixed, any 4 cores i7 laptop config can be a hell of a good choice for forensics. Remember, that the bottleneck is the USB cable or the attached device, not the machine used for acquiring images )

Looking for it to be mobile or stay in one location?

They'd stay in one location, it's a size issue mainly.

I don't think that all devices belong to the same "class", the Lenovo one, which is - I believe - the Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny Desktop
http//shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/desktops/thinkcentre/m-series-tiny/m700/
is (or pretends to be) a more "serious" piece of hardware (and it is actually bigger than most the other ones), while - say - the Beebox seems more like a TV-stick on steroids…

Also price may be an issue.

Personally I would go for something "tougher" and that is already shipped with a Linux of some kind (as this will guarantee that appropriate drivers for the hardware exist in Linux), and possibly a configurable system *like* (only as a couple of examples)
http//zareason.com/shop/Zini-1550.html
http//www.logicsupply.com/cl100/
Or a manufacturer with a wider range (where you might more easily find something suitable, another couple examples)
https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/overview
http//www.gigabyte.com/products/list.aspx?s=47&ck=104

jaclaz

Thanks Jaclaz, I'll look into those options. A pre-installed Linux system would be best, been burned on a few of the test units we bought and installing a linux distro on them is infuriating.

Panasonic Toughbook rugged laptops and Toughpad durable tablets look also cool. I used Panasonic Toughbook rugged laptops in the Windows XP era, with 100% satisfaction!

I don't know about the Linux support of Panasonic Toughbooks these days. Also, they are a bit pricey, but you get exactly what they promise.

If you work fixed, any 4 cores i7 laptop config can be a hell of a good choice for forensics. Remember, that the bottleneck is the USB cable or the attached device, not the machine used for acquiring images )

The tablets sound interesting, i'll take a look!

We've got a couple of these, that we use for offsite examinations, that might fit your brief.

http//www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4888#ov

They're not cheap, especially as you need to get your own RAM and SSD, but they're small and powerful. Money well spent for us, they have saved us hours and hours that would have been spent sitting in police stations waiting for phones to extract…

Hello,

To image digital media in the field, we use the MediaBox units from Trinity Workshops in the UK. We've used them for years now, and they're the first things we pack in our field kit.

We have some MediaBox 2 & 3 units. All they do is take forensic (DD) images, but that is fine for us, as we just need to image data in the field, to bring back to the office for analysis.

I believe they are working on the next range, which will include some digital triage and analysis capability, and also some ADB scripts for mobile phone work.

Might be worth checking out.

Mark

Hello Omnius,

Just as a follow-up, as I saw that you are looking for a lab-based system…

I have one of these units on my desk. There's an RJ-45 port on it, so it's hooked up to the internal network with an IP Address.

When I get digital media in the lab, I just plug it in to the Mediabox unit and away it goes. If you read the info on the website you can see that the units are fully-automated, so all I have to do is plug the stuff in and the mediabox does the rest.

It's shared on the network, so I can log into it from my workstation and copy/analyse the data however I want.

Hope this helps,

Mark

We use Lenovo m700 for our imaging, we have 18 of these in our lab. DEFT 8.2 installs very well. Get monitors which have a vesa mount and mount them on the back of the monitor and they take up very little space.
Attach a USB HDD dock and a USB 3 writeblocker (mainly for IDE drives) and you'll be flying through imaging. DOnt' worry about having Linux pre-installed, DEFT 8.2 is very easy and only needs a few minor adjustments afterwards to suit your needs, though you can use it straight off the bat.
If you need any help setting up Linux Imagers, PM me