Lock, stock, and hard driveSometimes good things come in small packages too. Take for example, the Data Locker Secure Drives. More and more, users are turning to external drives to store their files, especially in this era of mobile computing. But the more drives you have, the more you have to concern yourself with the security of your data. That’s where something like the Data Locker comes in. At first blush, it looks much like any other external drive: USB 2.0 interface, shiny rectangular casing, LCD display—whaaaa? That's right, but not only is it an LCD display, it’s a touch-sensitive LCD display. When you plug the drive into the computer, you’ll see a numeric keypad appear on the display and unless you enter the correct PIN code the drive will refuse to mount—and will subsequently burst into flames. Okay, well, not really. But your data will be locked down tighter than a childproof medicine cap. And, in fact, even if a particularly determined data thief pilfers your drive and pries it open in the hopes of retrieving its juicy secrets, the data will still be unreadable (the reps told us the data is not encrypted, so we're not precisely sure how that works). The drives are available in your choice of capacities: 80GB for $160, 120GB for $200, and $250 for $300. Should you be the type who likes to roll your own drive, you can just buy the enclosure for $100 and pop in an SATA drive of your choice. There are downsides, however: though the drive is Mac-compatible without any additional drivers, it only supports FAT32 or NTFS—so, for Macs, read FAT32. That means that you can’t use it to store files if you want to keep their metadata intact. Still, if your concerned for your data security trumps all other worries, the Data Locker might be what you're looking for. And heck, who doesn’t love LCD touchscreens, right? http://www.macworld.com/article/131473/2008/01/gboxces2.html |
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