Posted 10/19/09 at 12:00:00 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Don’t be fooled by the Vantec ezShare’s unassuming looks. This simple six-foot white cable with its Type A USB plugs on either end is actually one of the easiest ways to quickly moves files between two computers. Just plug one end into an available USB port on a box running Windows (XP and up), and plug the other end into the second box.

A Windows Explorer–like app will auto-launch on each machine, letting you drag and drop folders and files between the two PCs. If this sounds an awful lot like Data Drive Thru’s Tornado (reviewed November 2007), that’s because the two products are pretty similar. The file-explorer UI and software functionality of both products are virtually the same. It’s close enough that we have a pretty strong suspicion that the underlying chipsets and software come from the same factory in China. There are a few key differences, though.

Continue reading this review after the jump!

Read More

Posted 08/25/09 at 06:15:46 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

In the two years since we reviewed the first version of ID Vault, phishing attacks have increased by more than 180 percent, identity theft is up 25 percent, and organized crime has figured out ways to hijack financial sites and DNS servers.

For the most part, putting financial information into a browser is about as safe as walking through Central Park in one of those Chuck Bronson Death Wish movies.

So, you’d think ID Vault would be one of those tools you’d put on a chain and wear around your neck everywhere you go, but it isn’t. For those not up on ID Vault, it’s an encrypted USB key that stores your user names and passwords. If you want to go to your bank, eBay, or Amazon, you plug in the ID Vault and use a virtual keyboard to punch in a code (to thwart key loggers). The ID Vault client on your PC then goes to the site, makes sure you’re actually on a legitimate IP address for that particular website, and logs in for you.

Read More

Posted 07/15/09 at 10:45:08 AM by Gordon Mah Ung

Clickfree’s Transformer may look like an overweight USB key, but it is—forgive us, Optimus Prime—more than meets the eye.

Plug any generic external USB hard drive into the Transformer, then plug the Transformer into a USB port on your PC, and a backup app auto-launches and starts a countdown to begin an automatic file backup of common file extensions. You can interrupt the countdown and add more file extensions that the app doesn’t recognize by default. The document formats it grabs are fairly extensive, but if you want it to also copy that comic book archive in .cbr format, you’ll need to add the extension first.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

Read More

Posted 10/01/07 at 01:48:10 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

We’ve used too many Jack Bauer references lately, but c’mon, how could we review this key and not say it’s the one Jackie boy would use?

The 8GB Flash Survivor GT, after all, is shock and water resistant—and if your service automatic runs out of ammo, you can even fling its hard aluminum body at someone’s head. But how does it perform?

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 07/03/07 at 02:02:07 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Ain’t technology wonderful? Just a few years ago our mouths were agape at 1GB USB thumb drives that cost $500. Yet here we have Corsair pushing the 16GB mark for $140—a mere $8.75 per GB.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 06/12/07 at 06:19:18 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Team Flash can’t compete with Team Magnetic on desktop computers, but the flash guys may have finally found a competitor it can conquer.

Unfortunately for Verbatim, its new 12GB micro-drive USB thumb drive is the victim. The Store ’n’ Go USB HD Drive uses Cornice’s Dragon-2 12GB miniature hard drive. This sixth-gen drive features lower power consumption, a 40 percent smaller size, and a 300 percent capacity increase. It also features a motion sensor, so it won’t die if you drop it while it’s running.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 02/13/07 at 01:38:44 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

The Patriot Xporter XT offers the same capacity at less than half the price of Kingston’s drive (reviewed next). Unfortunately, that’s the only stand-out feature we could find.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 02/12/07 at 01:38:44 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Kingston’s DataTraveler Secure is billed as an “enterprise-grade” flash drive. Translated for civvies, that means 256-bit AES hardware encryption, an IPX8 waterproof rating, and a titanium shell. Oh yeah, and optimization for small files. While almost every key we’ve tested in the last few months choked on the 10,000 Word docs we feed them during testing, the DataTraveler Secure was able to write that onslaught of files in three minutes instead of the usual 20 minutes.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More