NAT 16GB anti-copy flash-drive

Rating: 5/5

Review: 
A very good secure flash drive

I was sent this secure USB drive by the distributor for review, and I think it is very good.

The drive comes nicely boxed with good instructions (although they are printed very small). It's a nice size at about 6cm long and 2cm wide – not too big but not so tiny it gets lost. It has a shiny metal frame and a sort of faux-leather on the flat surfaces which looks quite nice. It has a ring to attach a keyring or lanyard, and seems pretty robust.

In use, it's very good. Installation is quick and simple (it's just plug-and-play) and you then have access to a menu of security settings. You can password protect the stick, but it's possible to leave it unlocked as well. You can set different security modes – hide files, save files as read-only, restrict times and length of storage and so on. That’s far more than I need - although it may be useful for others – but I'm very glad to have a securely password-protected drive.

Do make sure you keep your password, by the way, because if you forget it you've had it. There's a little recovery file which you can keep on your computer which will restore the drive to factory settings if you lose the password, but you'll lose all your data if you need to re-set.

Transfer speeds are pretty good without being spectacular; I get around 10MB/s with my USB2.0 Windows 8 laptop (I hate Windows 10!), which is a little slower than some, but perfectly acceptable.

I can recommend this drive. Obviously, it's too early to comment on long-term reliability but it works well and seems very durable. If you are looking for a secure USB memory stick, this should serve you well.