July 5, 2022

Introducing: The new Vault Pro 6 Port

Today, Protectli is announcing the  launch of the new Vault Pro 4600 Series. Available with an i3, i5 or i7 CPU, we are launching the VP4630 with an i3, which you can now order on protectli.com.

2.5G Network Ports and enhanced hardware security

The Vault Pro VP4630 is the new flagship product for Protectli and we developed it to be as versatile as possible:

  • 6x Intel 2.5G Network Ports
  • High Speed NVMe storage
  • Dual Channel DDR4 Memory
  • M.2 slot for WiFi + M.2 slot for cellular connectivity
  • USB C

The VP4630 is expected to begin shipping next week (July 11th) for orders from our US store in addition to our EU store.

Notably, we’ve implemented new network controllers on the VP4600.  The venerable Intel® i210 and i211 gigabit network controllers which we’ve used on Protectli products for years and are a staple in the industry have seen a wild demand and cost increase over the last 18 months.  The i211 has officially been discontinued by Intel and the i210 is the recommended replacement.  This would be great, except that the cost for the i210 is simply too high.  Fortunately, the Intel i225-V 2.5 gigabit controller has become available at a reasonable price point and with drivers that are supported on more and more operating systems.  This coincides nicely with the wider availability of cost effective 2.5G switches and access points.

For the first time, we have also implemented NVMe (PCIe x4) based storage on a Protectli platform.  We see the VP4600 as a platform that should not be limited to being a firewall, but as a platform that can take on any of a number of workloads.  Specifically we’ve seen a strong interest from our community in using Protectli hardware as a virtualization platform, and by implementing NVMe based storage we’ve added a feature that makes the VP4600 an ideal mini lab or small virtualization server for work or for home.  

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, you will find that we have put more effort and focus into our platform firmware.  The VP4600 series, as with all currently shipping Protectli products, has support for coreboot, but we’re also expanding our coreboot support to add additional platform security features. For the first time we’re providing the ability to completely disable Intel’s Management Engine, and we’re providing support for Verified Boot as well as Secure Boot.  As ever more sophisticated threat actors devise new ways to compromise our devices, it is ever more important that we do everything possible to keep our devices secure and we see platform firmware enhancements as a really important step.  In the coming weeks we will be publishing knowledgebase articles and guides on what these firmware enhancements mean and how users can take advantage of them, so stay tuned!

We’re really excited about the VP4600 and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on one.  Thanks for your patience as we worked to get these products released!

Want to see what else the VP4630 is capable of ? Configure your Vault Pro VP4630 now!