Atola TaskForce has been designed as a tool for maximum productivity with the ability to image, hash, wipe in parallel on 12+ more ports at the top native speeds of the evidence drives and achieve an overall speed of 15 TB/hour.
Our engineers continuously develop new features to enhance the product and solve forensic examiners’ most pressing needs in the acquisition process.
The unit is equipped with 8-thread Xeon CPU 3.7 GHz, ECC RAM, and a server-grade motherboard. It also has 18 ports: 6 SATA, 6 SAS/SATA, 4 USB, and IDE drives, as well as other storage devices via Thunderbolt, Apple PCIe, and M.2 SSD extension modules. All ports are equipped with a source switch, which allows to use each port in the preferred mode and keep the source ones write-protected.The system provides users with a huge performance capacity, combined with a variety of features necessary to handle huge amounts of data within a limited time.
The new TaskForce firmware version provides users with Express mode – a breakthrough time-saving feature for lightning-fast start of imaging.
Once express mode settings are specified, simply click the Activate button and connect your evidence drives for an immediate start of imaging. Your workflow to image comes down to one action:
• Plug an evidence drive into a Source port
• TaskForce will start imaging it automatically
By activating the express mode, a user can exercise full control over up to 17 self-launching imaging sessions on source ports, while the target ones remain available for other tasks.
To further boost TaskForce’s productivity, Atola engineers provided it with Web API for automation.
This technology enables integrating TaskForce into a workflow to automate consecutive task launch: analysis by software like Magnet AXIOM, X-Ways, Autopsy, etc. can be started automatically after the completion of evidence acquisition with TaskForce. Web API allows to create a smooth and predictable workflow and complete more tasks in fewer clicks on TaskForce’s 18 ports.
With Web API – built into the TaskForce – a user can launch, track and stop imaging tasks, thus exercising full control over the processes running.
For instance, imagine you have 12 TaskForce ports switched to Source mode and source drives plugged into them. To instantly launch 12 imaging sessions simply use a script. Python script utilizes /start-image API request and prints task keys of all launched imaging sessions.
The script works in any operating system. To run it, follow these steps:
• Save the script into image12.py file
• Replace 10.0.0.4 with IP address of your TaskForce
• Replace //Vitaliy/Share with your shared network folder path
• Execute the script in the console: python image12.py
For more information about these and other commands, please look up the API documentation that we made available to public.
TaskForce’s server-grade hardware allows launching and tracking 12 or more parallel sessions at top native speeds of the drives. The currently running processes can easily be tracked in the home screen of the user interface.
During each session, evidence drives can be imaged up to 5 targets each. The targets may include other drives, image files (E01, RAW, img or dd) on a target drive or on a server, or a combination of all of the above.
TaskForce is equipped with two 10Gb Ethernet ports for higher data throughput. With Jumbo frames enabled, a payload greater than the standard maximum transmission.
Multi-user access allows a group of operators to work simultaneously on different tasks, tracking the progress remotely and using multitasking capabilities to the full.
The whole forensic team can track the tasks launched from any device within the local network, by entering the IP address in the Chrome browser.
The IP address is displayed on the small screen on the front panel of the hardware unit.
The number of users accessing the TaskForce simultaneously is unlimited.
Automatic report generation allows easy tracking of the status of the drives involved in a process. The reports are very detailed and contain information about the unit, the drive, the case as well as time stamps and logs. Any action, as small as the Source switch on the hardware unit being turned on or off results in a report being generated by the system, all for easy tracking of the status of the drives involved in a process.
The reports can be found in the Reports section or under each case/device in the Cases section. The list of the recently completed tasks is also displayed on the Home screen beneath the active processes. By clicking on each of the completed tasks, you get directed to the respective report. The search bar across the user interface helps find relevant reports.
We strive to help in saving time and energy of forensic professionals. Therefore we keep improving and enhancing TaskForce to make even the toughest and the most complex imaging job faster and easier.
