USB Flash Drives

HI people,

I'm looking to purchase a USB Flash drive with a capacity of 256 and 512 mb, but I have one question regarding these devices for which I am hoping someone who has one already, will be able to answer.

Some of the drives in the market support a very important to me feature, that is, password protection.

My understanding is that it encrypts the data, or simply sets a password which you must enter in order to gain access to the data on the drive.

The part I am confused about is to whether this feature is built into the device, or requires special software to 'enable' it.

In the case special software is required, it would be a logical assumption that one can buy pretty much any usb flash device and use this software to enable password protection on it!

Have I got it right or wrong ?

Cheers,

Off the top of my head I recall that its hardware protection.. must be sorta like the zip drives used to have.. and yes its always nice to have encryptable storage a password protected zipdisk actually stopped me getting into a load of trouble once long ago ...

Ahh the good old war stories we could all probably share in non public forums hehe.

Which models are you planning on picking up ?

Hmmm... my recent search for the answer showed that it was more of a software protection but I can't be sure. I was hoping someone here would have used them and be able to provide me an answer from their experience with them.

I'm planning for a USB2, 256 and 512 mb. I need the 512mb to store the site on it, as it no longer fits on one 250mb ZIP or a 256mb flash

I've been searching for a long time and I have found a design I like packaged in a nice aluminium case.

Yes Chris,
I think I have an answer to your question but i want to belive it's not late.Im just new on this site.
Concerning your quetion,i want to say that your suggestion was right.I bought one flash drive, Marked Lexer jump drive 256 mb amd in it was a software.This software is used to format and partition the drive into two sections deciding on the capacity to use for each partion.Now after formating,you have the option to issue a password to the section u want it to carry your vital info.the free acess section is named public (for use by any body) and secured section is named x,followed by the extension''secured'' Each time u insert the drive into the USB port,it shows the two sections as if there were two drives( bublic and secured).A password window pops up each time you connect the drive.If u don't want to use the secured,close the window and doubble click on public if that is ur choice.It's diplays the content of public without requesting for any password.If by mistake U format the whole drive,U can only use it as one and like any normal drive since the software will be lost

Chris,

You do know you can get one and two gig USB memory stick now as well. My wife has a two gig one for work, and on the side there is a little "switch" with a padlock sign on it. I assume this would lock/protect the data. However, as she won't let me anywhere near the thing (can't image why ) I can't tell you what it does.

Maybe someone else can enlighten us.

Rockape

Hi Rockape,

The padlock does protect the data however it doesn't Password Protect it. The padlock will make the USB read only which is good for Technicians who need to run patches, AV, etc... off them and don't know how clean the device is that they are running the stuff on. It will therefore protect it and stop viruses from spreading.

All the Encryption i have seen on these things are just software based and i have yet to come across one that builds it into the PEN drive itself (which you would like would be easy to do, at the end of the day a driver is usually installed to access it so why not include some encryption/decryption and password prompts) ?

Cheers