LENOVO THINKPAD USB PORTABLE SECURE DRIVE

Lockable, Portable Hard Drive




Drive security is getting to be a hot-button issue; witness the recent story about a lost M1)3 player with military data on it being resold in a pawn shop. The problem with so-called "secure" hard drives has traditionally been that they have too many limitations. This Lenovo external drive transcends those limitations by internalizing its security—it looks just like a plain old hard drive to Windows or Mac OS X. It's hardware-encrypted (with 128-hit AES) and easy to use—what more could you as for?

At first glance, the 0.5-by-3.5-by-4.5-inch (I-IWD), 320GB Secure Drive looks like a USB numeric keypad. An LED indicator tells you the drive's status, and the casing is clad in the same rubberized coating that gives Lenovo's Think Pad notebooks their distinctive and sturdy feel. You can add up to ten users (in addition to the administrator),each with a unique access code. That way, the drive can be passed from person to person while remaining secure, with each user having access to all the data on it.



In testing, the Secure Drive scored very well on PCMark05, turning in 3,126—exceptional for an external storage drive. It was also fast in simple dragand-drop copying, taking only 52 seconds to transfer our 1.2GB test folder. 'lb he sure, FireWire and eSATA drives have the potential to be faster, but the Secure Drive pays no performance penalties for its security. At about $0.68/GB, the drive is a bit pricey. You can get a nonprotected 500GB drive for the same total price as the Secure Drive (about $0.44/ GB). But for its target audience, the extra security is worth the money. If you're a businessperson who needs to pass sensitive data physically from one computer to another, or it you want to back up your files with another layer of security, the Secure Drive is a perfect choice.- Joel Santo Domingo

PC Magazine April 2009