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I bought myself a Sandisk U3 Titanium the other day, and I am quite impressed with the little beauty. While fairly expensive for 4GB (AUD$84), apparently the thing can stand 2000 pounds (roughly 907KG) of crushing force and it will be OK. Not that I intend to try it, but it does make a nice boasting point. The “liquidmetal” appearance is pretty cool, and best of all the plastic bit lights up blue. I also like not having a cap to worry about losing.

As for software, the U3’s have almost zero linux support. You can see both the main partition (where your data goes) and the CDFS partition with the menu software, but thats it. However on Windows, the software does a pretty good job. You insert the drive, and it automatically fires up the U3 menu for the bottom right corner. I suppose that this autorun is courtesy of the CDFS partition, or otherwise the standard Windows XP USB menu would come up, right? I think that this is a fairly major security issue; what if I hacked it to run a few nasties (password grabbers or spyware spring to mind) instead of the menu?

U3 do a fairly good job of having a wide array of software downloadable right to your U3, but I have a few issues. Firstly, there isn’t such variety as PortableApps, which I was running on my last drive. Secondly, most of it is payware. Sure, you can get quite a few free trials and freebies there, but there are plenty of good open-source alternatives to the ones offered for purchase by U3. This brings me to the downside, as far as I know you cannot add your own applications to the U3. You could run them from the drive, sure, but I don’t think they can be added to the menu. This warrants a closer look, perhaps I will get to it soon.

The single two applications for the flash drive that I like (Windows only, remember) is FindMyU3 and Avast Antivirus U3. FindMyU3 is a application which runs on insertion of the USB (still thinking security risks) and brings up a nice box for a good Samaritan to get into contact with the owner of the U3. Aside from being slightly annoying, the application does not divulge any details (but I’ll bet they could find a bit about you by going through 4GB of your documents) until you report it lost on the website. You can even report it stolen, and the application will give you details about them, such as their IP address. Hopefully the cops will be able to do something about that, if it was important enough. FindMyU3 costs USD$1 per year, which is pretty good, considering the price of the drive. As for Avast, it is quite a nice little portable AV, with quite a few little functions. Unfortunately, you have to pay for this one too, but the trial that came with the USB is quite impressive.

Considering everything, this is a tough little USB drive, and I for one am impressed. Given all of the above points, and considering that it is designed for windows, not Linux, I rate it an eight out of ten.

Posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 3:45 pm in Hardware | rss feed for comments| Leave a response, or trackback