Laptop Bags and Accessories » USB Flash Drives

Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:05:03 +0000

If you're looking for secure storage so that no one can read you files, this is one of the most popular options. Your passwords, bank details and private correspondence will all be safe with this affordable secure storage. The Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus is USB flash drive that offers high-enough capacity for most uses and has preloaded security software. This lets you create multiple password-protected areas called Encrypted Vaults that automatically encrypt your data with on-the-fly 256-bit AES encryption. And for peace of mind that your data is secure, the File Shredder feature lets you securely and thoroughly delete files so they can't be recovered. What’s more, the drive boasts an always-on capacity meter that lets you easily view your available storage space at a glance. Make sure you don't end up getting hacked or having your identity stolen. Keep your data private.

Kingston Data Traveler Locker+ with Encryption 8 GB USB 2.0 Hi-Speed DataTraveler DTL+/8 GB

admin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 03:55:24 +0000

If you have data that you need to keep secure, this is a great option. It is as popular as Lexar Jumpdrive Secure II, and it is really well priced. You set a single password and it locks your files. If someone tries to crack it, then after 10 tries it will erase the files. It uses 256-bit AES hardware encryption and Supports Windows and Mac

SanDisk Cruzer 16 GB Cruzer

admin — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:52:41 +0000

I'm a huge fan of the Sandisk range of drives (you can see a full review of written elsewhere on this site) and this is as good as they get. It is simple, has pretty good capacity, is reasonably priced, fast and reliable. What more do you want?

SanDisk Cruzer Blade Flash Drive

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:51:04 +0000

This is billed as a really fast drive, but some consumer tests show that it isn't as fast as it is made out to be. It is compact and reliable but perhaps not the fastest around.

LaCie iamaKey 8 GB USB Flash Drives

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:35:58 +0000

Among the consistent top selling USB flash drives at the moment is the innovative LaCie iamaKey. This is, as its name suggests, a flash drive that looks and feels a lot like a key. The idea behind it is pretty simple. Many of us have key rings that we carry around all day. So why not add a USB Flash Drive in a shape and form that works well with the keys so that a) you always have your drive with you should you need it and b) you can carry around data that you regularly need.

So what sort of data might you not want to leave home without? I have a lot of different passwords for various websites and the like. So I recently bought some password management software that keeps them all encrypted for easy use on a USB drive (I use RoboForm, if you are interested). In theory I could stick them on any drive and just try hard to remember to pop it into my pocket. As I’ve mentioned before I’m a huge fan of the SanDisk 16GB and now own several of these (so much so that it has become a problem for me figuring out which has got what data on it). There is no reason for me not to keep my passwords on that. But I liked the idea of having my passwords on a key. Besides, I never leave my keys at home, unlike my USB drives that I’m always forgetting at home or at the office.

The other great thing about this drive is that it feels really sturdy and I get the feeling that it would take a lot to destroy it. To be fair it gets some mixed reviews and I’ll lay out some of the positives and negatives that people report about the LaCie key.

The main advantages of the LaCie iamaKey

The big advantages of this drive are its small size, good storage and robust housing that makes it pretty sturdy. It also comes in a range of capacities from 8 GB all the way up to 32 GB.

It doesn’t get lost

It is strong

The main disadvantages

The biggest complaint that people make about the LaCie key is that it is slow. Its data transfer rate isn’t as great as some other drives and you’d expect better from a premier name such as LaCie. That said, there are sometimes complaints about the speed of the SanDisk cruzer whereas I’ve never found it much of a problem. Sure, it can take a while if you are moving big files, but for retrieval such as watching movies or listening to music I’ve never had any trouble.

The other big complaint about the key drive is reliability. A couple of users have reported failure after 6 months. It is difficult to know without decent data what the failure rate is and whether it is any worse than for other thumb drives by other manufacturers.

Another issue is that the plastic plugs that cover the connectors are easily lost.

With the LaCie iamaKey v2, inventive storage meets data protection. The key-shaped design is functional and memorable, and the protection that the LaCie iamaKey offers makes it extremely reliable. Best of all, you can fit an enormous amount of data in a small flash drive. With its eye-catching design, the iamaKey certainly stands out, but its connector (Gold SIP) is both water- and scratch-resistant, making it one of the most durable and thinnest USB keys on the market. Protective edges on the connectors ensure that you will always insert the LaCie iamaKey properly, keeping it usable and safe. With the universal Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface, iamaKey can be used with both PC and Macs. Hi-Speed USB 2.0 not only offers universal compatibility and cross-platform convenience, but features a hot-pluggable connection and high-speed transfer rates, and is Windows ReadyBoost compatible. Best of all, the iamaKey is backward-compatible with USB 1.1, so you can use it on any computer. A product of the 5.5 Designers firm, the LaCie iamaKey fits in your pocket, and on your keychain, letting you take your data with you wherever you go. The LaCie iamaKey v2 also now comes with the new LaCie encryption software: LaCie Private-Public. Another new collectible product produced in conjunction with 5.5 Designers, the iamaKey is a usable, tough USB flash drive, but with a well-developed sense of fun. Minimum System Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista, Mac OS X v10.3.5 or higher, Linux-based system. Box Contents: LaCie iamakey and cap.

LaCie iamakey v2 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive 131105
Average Rating:
91 total customer reviews...

LaCie iamakey v2 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive 131106
Average Rating:
91 total customer reviews...

LaCie iamakey v2 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (131104)
Average Rating:
91 total customer reviews...

LaCie iamaKey 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive 130870
Average Rating:
208 total customer reviews...

The Kingston Data Traveler 256 GB, Not Cheap but Huge Data Storage

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:30:32 +0000

Every day around the world thousands of business travellers slip their computers into their laptop bags and then grab a handful of USB Flash drives and stuff them into various pockets. I’m sure I’m not the only one to do this but it just seems that I never have enough space. I have two SanDisk Cruzer 16 gig flash drives, one 4 gig flash drive and then a handful of smaller sub-1 gig drives kicking around on my desk at the office and at home. That sure should seem like a lot of space but it really isn’t. I often have my 16 gig drives filled with movies, video or multimedia, leaving no space for work. My 4 gig drive is filled up with PDF files of long reports that I might need for my next project or to answer questions on my last project or even just that I planned to get around to reading but never managed. Even worse is the fact that I’m not very systematic so I never remember what I’ve saved to what disk. On work trips I end up taking them all just in case I forget one with an important file. It’s crazy, I know. And maybe I’m less organized than most people but I can’t believe that I am the only person in the world who does this.

So I was quite amazed to see the latest offering from Kingston. Now, as you probably know, Kingston has a long history of making laptop accessories and premium flash drives. Their little thumb drives aren’t the cheapest out there, but they do come with pretty nifty features such as password protection and other security enhancements.

The cool thing about their latest USB drive is its gigantic data storage. This little puppy can hold 256 gig. That’s huge. That’s more than the storage you get with most netbook and notebook computers. It’s bigger too than most compact portable disk drives such as the Western Digital range of passport drives. And it fits in your pocket. It is a bit bigger than the usual flash drive but not nearly as big as a hard drive.

I guess the downside to having so much storage in such a compact package is that it makes it really easy to lose the whole lot. If I worked for a government agency or big financial institution I would also be anxious. A spy or unscrupulous employee could download a huge pile of secret data if they could get this into the system.

I know it sounds silly getting excited about increased storage capacity. I mean remember how excited we got when we moved from an audio tape storage on home computers to floppy disk drives. I’m sure people will read this in a couple of years and laugh at me getting enthusiastic about a measly 256 gig. But until that happens, this little puppy looks to be the answer to my dreams for more storage space. The only flaw in my logic is the law that data expands to fill the available space. I’m sure it will be no time before I’ve taken up everything in this and am still hunting around for my old USB drives again.

Kingston's new DataTraveler® 310 USB Flash drive features 256GB capacity, making it the highest capacity drive available on the market.

A Few of The Best USB Flash Drives

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:29:53 +0000

RANK	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	#6
	The Kingston Data Traveler 256 GB, Not Cheap but Huge Data Storage	LaCie iamaKey 8 GB USB Flash Drives	SanDisk Cruzer Blade Flash Drive	SanDisk Cruzer 16 GB Cruzer	Kingston Data Traveler Locker+ with Encryption 8 GB USB 2.0 Hi-Speed DataTraveler DTL+/8 GB	Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus
Capacity Capacity: Capacity	256GB	8GB	16GB	16GB	8GB	16GB
Encrypted Encrypted: Encrypted
List price List price: List price	$782.80	$47.00	$35.99	$89.99	$50.00	$34.99
Sale price Sale price: Sale price	$269.99	Too low to display	$9.14	$8.90	$14.99	$12.29

	The Kingston Data Traveler 256 GB, Not Cheap but Huge Data Storage	LaCie iamaKey 8 GB USB Flash Drives	SanDisk Cruzer Blade Flash Drive	SanDisk Cruzer 16 GB Cruzer	Kingston Data Traveler Locker+ with Encryption 8 GB USB 2.0 Hi-Speed DataTraveler DTL+/8 GB	Lexar JumpDrive Secure II Plus

It is hard to get excited about flash drives. You know what I mean. Either they work or they don’t. And anyway, doesn’t everyone have a pile of old ones just sitting around? Well I’ve got to say that in the past 6 months I’ve dumped most of my old ones apart from one or two sitting in my desk at work for emergency document storage. But I’ve bought three SanDisk Cruzers in the last couple of months and couldn’t be happier with them.If I had to choose a single USB that I had to recommend to someone looking for the best USB flash drive it would be one of these. Two were 16 GB and one was a 4 GB and I could not have been happier with them. The only downside is their cost. When I think about it I’ve spent enough on flash drives to have actually bought a mini USB hard drive with 160 GB capacity. But I still really like the flexibility of the flash drives.

What to Look For When You Buy a USB Flash Drive

There are a few characteristics to consider when buying a flashing drive. The first is obviously capacity. It is easy to say that more is better,but that’s not necessarily the case, especially if you are looking for the best value. Flash Drives with capacities of 16GB to 32GB seem to offer some of the best value in terms of dollars per GB and also convenience.

The next thing to look at is transfer speed – here there is sometimes a tradeoff between capacity and speed, so you may not necessarily want the biggest drive. If you are simply using static documents, speed is not much of an issue, but if you are streaming large media files such as movies then you will want something quite fast.

That said, most USB 2 drives these days are fast enough for video.

The third thing to look at is encryption. The price of AE256 encryption has fallen dramatically in recent years and it is easily good enough for most purposes if you want to keep documents private.

My favourites are the Sandisk Micro range for the reasons I outline below.

What do I love about the SanDisk flas drive?

Okay. To start with, 16 GB is one heck of a lot of capacity. I find that I can cram it with music files, a huge stack of PDFs and still easily have loads of space for some music and a couple of videos. When I’m travelling for work (which if you’ve been following my blog by now you’ve gathered that I do quite a lot of work travelling) I find it super convenient to have all that stuff. Before a long flight I just download everything I possibly think will be useful research material for my current project, dump it all onto the memory stick, and then have plenty to keep me busy on the flight.

In fact I find that some of my most productive time is when I’m flying because I don’t have the telephone or e-mail distracting me. But I do like to have all my documents immediately at hand and I find this way of working off a USB drive on my laptop and desktop a lot more convenient than trying all sorts of fancy synchronization of folders and drives. This means off course that I have a whole pile of USB flash drives with me a lot of the time.

The SanDisk is fast

I’ve played quite a bit of video and also done loads of big transfers and I’ve found that this usb drive is more than fast enough for my needs. Now I’m sure there are a whole lot of usb flash drives that are faster at data transfer, but this is plenty for my needs

The Sandisk flash drive is small

This goes without saying but this drive has a nifty little pop-in mechanism so it folds down on itself and doesn’t have a cap that you can misplace. That makes it about a third smaller than most other thumb drives. Unlike a hard drive, even a compact one, this can easily slip into a pocket and you really don’t even know it is there.

U3 Software included

A lot of people complain about U3 being included on disks. This software allows you to boot up and run a whole bunch of applications from your thumbdrive. I sometimes download open office onto mine so that I can be sure of opening and using word documents wherever I am. But more important for me is the built in security application that allows you to lock down and password protect the drive. I don’t know how seriously secure this is. I’m sure that proper and full encryption would do a better job of keeping really sensitive data safe, but for me its enough just to know that some stranger can’t get into my files without having to ask the NSA to crack the password. Frankly, if you don’t like U3 then just delete it. There you have it, the best USB Flash drive.