14 DAY TRIAL // Flash drives have come to be quite small, compact to the point where they barely stick out of the universal serial bus port. But there are some features that still need the full stick form factor. Toshiba's new product is one of them.
Not that the drive is all that small. The newcomer, aptly called Toshiba Encrypted USB Flash Drive, is barely wider than the USB connector and not much longer than your index finger.
And yet, it still somehow has enough space for a full number pad, which you use to input a password before accessing the data.
Toshiba wanted protection to be as high as possible, and while AES 256-bit encryption is all well and good, it is even better to tie the file access to a hardware-based password system, rather than leaving it to the computer operating system.
The Toshiba Encrypted USB Flash Drive
When looked at from the top, it bears no distinctive marks compared to others of its ilk. It is an all too normal-looking, black-colored drive bearing the company logo in white.
Same thing happens if you look at its underside. This is because of the unusual approach to the USB cap: is more than a USB port cap.
Rather than giving the drive a cap that only hides the USB port, Toshiba designed a shroud that fully encompasses the flash drive, save for the rear end where the hang-on rope is found.
This serves to protect the keys of the numpad from wear, as well as from dust and grime that would otherwise accumulate over time.
While it is mostly unadvertised, this issue is one that owners of secured portable HDDs and SSDs have to deal with without fail, after a few weeks of owning them. Having a full-cover shroud quite neatly solves this problem.
As for storage capacity, Toshiba is willing to allow you a choice between 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB. Higher limits might have been possible, but allowances had to be made for the space-demanding password system.
Finally, the flash drive uses its own rechargeable battery to store the secure code. You need to input the password before you plug the drive into a USB port by the way, though it automatically re-locks once pulled out.
Availability
With sales already underway, the price of the Toshiba Encrypted USB Flash Drive ranges from $95 / €95 to $200 / €200. Unfortunately, only USB 2.0 models exist, not USB 3.0.