| I've had Swiss Army knives on my keychain for years, | | | | x 18mm x 19mm and weighs about 1.35 ounces. |
| it's come in handy on many occasions. Recently I | | | | Though the Victorinox requires no drivers for the MAC |
| always seem to have a USB flash drive in my pocket | | | | or PC it does come preloaded with software. The |
| too. When I received the SWISS MEMORY USB | | | | Swissbit data SecureLOCK allows you to encrypt and |
| Victorinox drive from Swissbit it was obvious that | | | | decrypt files and folders. The first time you use |
| combining the two was actually a very good idea. The | | | | SecureLOCK it will walk you through a username and |
| Victorinox is compact, easy to use and brings the | | | | password setup along with a reminder question in |
| usefulness of the Swiss Arm tools. The USB drive | | | | case you forget. Once there, the SecureLOCK |
| comes in a variety of sizes from 128MB to 2GB and is | | | | provides you the flexibility to encrypt the entire drive, or |
| a plug-n-play (unless Win 98) device and price points | | | | create partitions where they are "public" or "private" |
| range from $50USD to $225USD respectively. | | | | areas. SecureLOCK also includes formatting software |
| The Victorinox is small and compact given what it's | | | | to clean up everything but the encryption utility region |
| trying to accomplish. The unit looks and feels very | | | | (software takes 488kb of memory out of a 2MB |
| sturdy and would handle plenty of pocket abuse, | | | | partition), a bootable disk feature and repair utility to |
| keychain banging and those occasional across the | | | | check for bad blocks. |
| counter-top tosses. The Victorinox has a snapping | | | | We did run into a small glitch, if the SecureLOCK icon |
| clasp at one end which holds the flash memory in | | | | in the desktop tray is closed it prevents the drive from |
| place. The clasp prevents the USB memory stick from | | | | being ejected. Signing back in and logging off didn't do |
| popping out at an undesirable time and provides an aid | | | | the trick, but rather loggin in and using the Exit button of |
| in retrieving the USB connector when ready for use. | | | | the software did. |
| The pivot end of the clasp can also be detached from | | | | Performance wise, the USB Victorinox is middle of the |
| the main chassis of the enclosure so the USB thumb | | | | road. In our informal tests of the 2GB version, it took |
| drive can be disconnected. Although the rotation of the | | | | about 6 minutes to write a 400MB folder of mixed file |
| USB stick does provide enough room for those tight | | | | types from our PC to the device. It took about 35 |
| USB ports we all know about, the ability to quickly and | | | | seconds to read the same data back to our PC, but |
| easily disconnect the flash memory all together is | | | | of course results will vary depending on the system |
| definitely a bonus...and Swissbit knows this as it's a | | | | running the device and the types of files being |
| patented technology. | | | | transferred. |
| The USB Victorinox comes with the classic tools | | | | All in all, the SWISS MEMORY USB Victorinox is a |
| needed for everyday use. The tools include scissors, | | | | good deal for the price. It comes packed with the |
| filing blade with screwdriver head, 30mm knife, | | | | traditional tools we love about Swiss Army along with |
| ball-point pen, red LED light, keychain loop and of | | | | a wide range of flash memory sizes to match a users' |
| course the USB flash memory stick. Swissbit does | | | | needs. The SecureLOCK encryption software is a |
| offer a non-tool version for airplane flight but this | | | | plus and the read/write performance of SWISS |
| review doesn't cover that model. The product is 60mm | | | | MEMORY is right on par with other products available. |