Maximum PC USB Thumbdrive RSS Feed

ID Vault 2009

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:15:46 -0500

Lock up your sensitive data

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.

The ID Vault will only work with Internet Explorer—uh, unless it’s IE8.

It sounds like the perfect way to conduct your business without losing sleep over security. Unfortunately, ID Vault 2009 has the same warts it did two years ago. You have to install client software for it to work on a PC and it only works with IE7. The first count could be excused, as you really should never enter sensitive information into someone else’s computer, anyway. But lack of third-party browser support is the killer. And it doesn’t help that the freaking thing doesn’t yet support Internet Explorer 8, which most security conscious people have already adopted. D’oh! IE8 support is expected sometime this summer, but that doesn’t help you out now, does it?

Then there’s the cost. The initial unit costs $49 with one year of service included. An additional year costs $39. We know the product claims to be one of the few ways to prevent pharming (mass router or DNS hijacking), but that’s pretty steep for just 12 months.

Given all these negatives, ID Vault 2009 is a difficult product to recommend for anyone except the truly paranoid who are willing to live with its quirks.

Clickfree Transformer

Gordon Mah Ung — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:45:08 -0500

Keeping backups simple, stupid

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

With the Transformer residing between your PC and a USB hard drive, all your data can be backed up (or restored) effortlessly.

You use the same application to restore your documents; you can choose to restore individual files or all of them, if needed. The files are stored in plain view on the hard disc, and even better, this doesn’t preclude you from using the drive for other purposes. And instead of converting your drive to some obscure ST disk format that you wouldn’t be able to access should you lose the Transformer, you can access the drive from another PC.

There’s very little to dislike about the Transformer, except that it’s too focused on file-based backups with common extensions. The backup will ignore .exe files—so if you purchased an app that you save in a folder on your desktop, you’d better remember to add the extension. We think the Transformer app should automatically back up all files on the desktop and in My Documents, on general principle, regardless of the extensions.

Still, that’s a weakness that will only hurt nerds in an HD failure. This is a great solution for those friends and family members who never manage to back up their PCs. The Transformer will do the job and do it easily, which means that it will get done.

Patriot Xporter XT 4GB

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:38:44 -0600

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.

Like Corsair’s Flash Voyager, the Xporter XT is dreadfully slow at writing small files, but unlike the Voyager, it doesn’t make up for that weakness with especially speedy large- and medium-file transfers. The Xporter XT also can’t compare to Kingston’s offering, which too is just fair at large- and medium-size files, but crazy-fast with small files.

Don’t get us wrong, the Xporter XT is no slouch. It’s close in write performance to the OCZ Rally and the SanDisk Cruzer that we rated highly in November. But that was before the 8GB Corsair and 4GB Kingston keys arrived. And given the Xporter XT’s lack of U3 support or basic encryption utilities, we think there are better choices out there.

Month Reviewed: January 2007
+ FEET: Lowest cost per gigabyte on the street.
- METERS: Gets aced by the competition in performance
Verdict: 7
URL: www.patriotmem.com

Kingston Datatraveler Secure 4GB

Gordon Mah Ung — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:38:44 -0600

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.

That’s a huge difference, and for someone who needs to grab 500MB of small Office files off the server at the end of the day, it’s well worth the extra bucks Kingston charges. And we do mean extra. Based on street pricing and formatted capacity, the Kingston key costs you around $61 per gig compared to $21 for Corsair’s drive. Even the SanDisk Cruzer that we looked at in November is cheap by comparison.

Still, that’s the price you pay for small-file performance. In other words, it’s a drive that’s not only good at writing AVI files but also DOC files. And for the office drone, that’s probably money well spent.
-Gordon Mah Ung

Month Reviewed: January 2007
+ USB: Fastest key for small-file writes that we've ever tested.
- PS/2: The chunky design and Beverly Hills pricing makes this a tough key to swallow.
Verdict: 9 - KickAss

URL: www.kingston.com

A-Data My Flash Fingerprint Disk 2GB

Josh Norem — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:16:14 -0600

The My Flash Fingerprint Disk offers a feature that goes well with a USB key: a fingerprint scanner to protect the drive’s contents. While not everyone keeps satellite images of nuclear facilities and top-secret documents on their USB key, it’s still reassuring to know that there’s an extra level of protection between your data and potential do-badders.

The fingerprint-recording process is as simple as can be. You select a finger from either hand to train onscreen, then swipe the chosen digit over the scanner. It records your fingerprint and you’re set—every time you plug in the key you have to swipe that finger to unlock the drive’s contents. Otherwise, the key’s contents are invisible, and the drive is write-protected. If you want to add another fingerprint to the key’s database, you have to first swipe the original finger in order to proceed.

While the fingerprint mechanism works fabulously, the key performed poorly in our file transfer tests. This seems to be a trend—no-name keys are usually slower than their brand-name brethren. In the end, this key’s svelte formfactor and biometrics can’t make up for its pokiness.

Month Reviewed: November 2006
+ FINGER PAINT: Great security feature, easy-to-use scanner, and affordable.
- FINGERPRINT: It’s a one-trick pony, and it’s slow.
Verdict: 7
URL: www.adatausa.com