Lexar pumps secure JumpDrive to 16GB
updated 12:15 pm EDT, Mon August 25, 2008
Lexar JumpDrive Secure 16G
Lexar today gave a shot of additional storage to the JumpDrive Secure II Plus with a new 16GB version. The flash drive holds twice as much as before but holds on to the security software tie-in that allows multiple locked-down storage areas on a given drive, each with their own 256-bit AES encrypted password. The e-ink capacity meter is also onboard to give a quick glance at free space even when the power is turned off, as the display only consumes energy when capacity changes.
Both basic storage and the security feature are available to Mac OS X and Windows PCs, while Windows users receive a demo version of Dmailer V7 software for syncing Outlook and Outlook Express data. The range-topping 16GB drive is due in September for $99 and will see Lexar drop the 512MB drive to have lesser capacities between 1GB and 8GB. No price cuts have yet been announced as part of the lineup change.
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Does it do Linux?
My past experience with "secure" flash drives as a network admin responsible for providing flash drives to employees is that they're really fragile, and even if you don't use the security features you've got a much higher failure rate from them... because thanks to their proprietary security software you can't just reformat them when they are (inevitably) corrupted.
And since they need special drivers to access the contents they might as well just bundle an encrypted file system with the drive and let you use it, or not.
Unless you can reliably re-initialize it at least as a conventional flash drive, you need to treat the real cost of these things at least 3-4 times the list price, because that's how much more often you're going to be replacing them than a competing "non secure" drive.
If it doesn't "do Linux", even as a "non secure" drive, keep that in mind.