USB Flash Drive Roundup - 10/2005
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 4, 2005 11:28 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
USB Flash Drive Security
Even the largest of the drives in today's roundup is still fairly small, and with a device that you're always carrying around to various places and using in various computers, chances are that you may eventually lose the drive.
If you lose your drive, and you happen to have some sensitive information on it, making sure that it doesn't end up on the web the next day may be a concern of yours. Thankfully, almost all of the contenders in this roundup offer some sort of "security" for their flash drives, but the degree of security really varies from one drive to the next.
The most rudimentary security that is on most flash drives is the ability to create a password-protected partition on the drive; that is, only accessible using a password. You use a manufacturer-supplied utility to divide your drive in two, creating a public and a secure partition. For the most part, these two partitions aren't accessible simultaneously; you usually have to "login" to the secure partition and doing so hides the public partition (although some controllers don't feature this limitation). With a special utility, someone can always re-partition your drive, but at least they won't gain access to the data stored on the secure partition.
The downside to drives with encryption support is that some drives perform the encryption in software, which results in a performance penalty when encryption is enabled. Kingston is the only manufacturer in this roundup that actually has a hardware-based encryption engine designed to encrypt/decrypt files at drive speed so that there's no performance penalty when accessing your secure, encrypted partition.
The problem with both approaches to security is that they are largely software dependent, and most manufacturers only provide software support for Windows. So Apple and Linux users are generally out of luck here; while you can still access the public partition on virtually all systems, secure partition access will require Windows in most cases.
Even the largest of the drives in today's roundup is still fairly small, and with a device that you're always carrying around to various places and using in various computers, chances are that you may eventually lose the drive.
If you lose your drive, and you happen to have some sensitive information on it, making sure that it doesn't end up on the web the next day may be a concern of yours. Thankfully, almost all of the contenders in this roundup offer some sort of "security" for their flash drives, but the degree of security really varies from one drive to the next.
The most rudimentary security that is on most flash drives is the ability to create a password-protected partition on the drive; that is, only accessible using a password. You use a manufacturer-supplied utility to divide your drive in two, creating a public and a secure partition. For the most part, these two partitions aren't accessible simultaneously; you usually have to "login" to the secure partition and doing so hides the public partition (although some controllers don't feature this limitation). With a special utility, someone can always re-partition your drive, but at least they won't gain access to the data stored on the secure partition.
Kingston's SecureTraveler software allows you to partition a compatible Kingston drive into public and secure partitions.
The downside to drives with encryption support is that some drives perform the encryption in software, which results in a performance penalty when encryption is enabled. Kingston is the only manufacturer in this roundup that actually has a hardware-based encryption engine designed to encrypt/decrypt files at drive speed so that there's no performance penalty when accessing your secure, encrypted partition.
The problem with both approaches to security is that they are largely software dependent, and most manufacturers only provide software support for Windows. So Apple and Linux users are generally out of luck here; while you can still access the public partition on virtually all systems, secure partition access will require Windows in most cases.
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sprockkets - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link
Although not reviewed here, I got the A Data key from newegg.com simply because they say it works with Linux on the package. I know any key will, but they are the only ones to have the guts to say it. Thanks for admitting Linux exists. Lifetime warranty too.jgh - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link
here is a link for another link, to an app that can make many (but probably not all) usb drives bootable and a couple of other hints/tips.http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5735">link
O.T. - for some reason i get a message that says i do not have permission to access this forum when i tried to create a new login with my e-mail address. did i get banned or something? i have only posted once (it was about the gta:lcs website). i also cannot log in with the origianl user name and password.
p.s. - it is o.k. to post links like this right?
Toolsac - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link
I just wanna say thanks to anand for bring us all so much info on every nook and crany of computing. When ever I am getting ready to upgrade or have a problem with my computer, Anand can help me. THANKS GUYS YOU ROCK!!!GameManK - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link
also curious about the memorex drives like the m-flyerhoppa - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link
Cool article, and a nice summary of the market (the intro stuff), but seriously, who really cares that much about the perfomance of these things when the entire thing can be written or read in <1 minute anyway. I do love benchmarks though (born and will die a stat-whore)!I have a suggestion for the article: can you post a single picture of all the drives (preferably with a key). I'd like to see what they all look like but I wasn't too crazy at all about clicking through 20 pages. In fact, I only made it through 4.
-andy
vexingv - Friday, October 21, 2005 - link
its an iomega 256mb and claims to be usb2, but is ridiculously slow compared to a generic 64mb drive i have. i've tried transferring about 20mb worth of portable firefox on the two drives side-by-side and the iomega drive took close to 5 minutes while my other drive took less than a minute.these benchmarks are really useful for that purpose of finding drives w/ faster flash memory controllers.
Souka - Wednesday, October 5, 2005 - link
REad the article....less than 1 min? Read it....not happening.Write times had the biggest delta....upto 20x speed difference....
So would you rather watch your drive write data for 3.5mins, or almost an hour?
Far as "clicking through 20 pages" Click once on the "Print this Article"....then you just use page down(or equivalent button) to scroll through
Chriz - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link
This was a good roundup, but I was also curious on some other drives that can be found on Newegg. Mainly interested in the Apacer drives and also the Memorex M-flyer...which got a good review in Maximum PC because of the retractable USB connector which seems convenient to me, but I am really not sure on the performance compared to other drives.intellon - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link
And why was iPod Shuffle excluded? Is it cuz of security matter/ bigger size/ higher cost? Cuz I use half of my shuffle for transfering files to and from - work, home and school.jkostans - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - link
Because its an mp3 player. There are plenty of ipod shuffle type players out there which aren't included, some smaller and more compact. I'm sure they would be with the slowest of the slow.