Tag Archives: USB Drives

StarTech USB Duplicator & Eraser Doesn’t Need a PC to Lobotomize Flash Drives

Posted on by

Do you frequently need to transfer or back up data from USB drives? Are you a spy? Well if you’re not one, what kind of job requires you to do that? Whatever it is you do, StarTech has a gadget that could serve you well. It can copy data from a USB drive and transfer it to up to two other USB drives simultaneously. And it can do that on its own, there’s no need to hook it up to a computer.

startech flash drive duplicator and eraser

The Flash Drive Duplicator and Eraser can copy just the data stored in a USB drive or it can make a clone of the entire drive. The second feature is useful if you’re copying up a bootable back-up drive or a disk image. As its name implies, the device can also erase data from up to two USB drives at the same time using either a quick erase method or a slower, but more secure way that supposedly follows a standard set by the US Department of Defense. I feel ashamed that I don’t have any data that merits that kind of sophisticated death.

startech flash drive duplicator and eraser 2

Aside from transferring data to a flash drive, you can also use the device to transfer data to a hard drive, a solid state drive and other storage devices like memory cards as long as you have the proper USB enclosure or reader for your storage device. What I don’t know is if you can use those storage media as a source drive. You can order one from Amazon for about $171 (USD). Head to StarTech’s website for more information.

[via Electronista via Xataka]

 

Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September

Posted on by

Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September

Victorinox may have offered a hefty bounty to crack its secure USB drives' encryption, but the storage sticks seem to have met their match another way: the end of software support. In an email sent to customers and a pair of Facebook posts, the firm announced that it will halt updates as of next month and that its security program's VeriSign certificate is only valid until September 15th. As a result, customers are urged to backup their data lickity split. According to the outfit, the economics of continuing application development just weren't reasonable and it'll now refer to a third party for all software. However, the Swiss Army Knife maker isn't out of the flash drive business -- it's committed to putting more of the devices on the market. We've reached out to the company for more details on how the thumb drives will be affected and we'll update when we get word. In the meantime, hit the source links for the notice or check out the e-mail below.


[Thanks, Scott]

Continue reading Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September

Filed under:

Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 03:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceFacebook (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

Toaster USB Hub and Toast Flash Drives: Ready to be Jammed with Data

Posted on by

I’m sure you have a thousand and one flash drives by now, but as far as gimmicks go, you don’t see USB hubs with matching flash drives that often. Too bad this toaster USB hub doesn’t pop the flash drives out when they’re ejected.

toaster usb hub toast flash drives

The flash drives come in four variants, including one that seems to have been burnt to a crisp already:

toaster usb hub toast flash drives 2

The toaster also has an SD Card reader built-in. You can of course use the USB hub with any flash drive (and the toast drives with any USB hub), but, well:

toaster usb hub toast flash drives 3

Unfortunately, this delicious combo costs a lot of bread. ThinkGeek is selling the goodies separately, $28 (USD) for the hub and $25 for each of the 4GB drives, so for a fully-loaded four-slice toaster, you’re looking at $128.


Portuguese opposition party wants ‘terabyte tax,’ voters want a new opposition party

Posted on by
Image
Portugal's opposition party, Partido Socialista, is pondering a tax on storage media under the flag of copyright protection. Under the proposal, consumers would pay €0.02 for every gigabyte of storage purchased, so a 1TB HDD would cost around €21 ($28) extra, plus an additional levy on devices over that size means a 2TB drive could cost an additional €103.2 ($135). It doesn't just stop at desktop platters: USB sticks, memory cards and even smartphones would also be charged, with any device packing 64GB of storage facing a surcharge of €32 ($42). A party member defended the idea, saying that the tax is aimed at professionals who use larger capacity drives -- but since most consumer HDDs come with a minimum size of 160GB and the legislation is also supposedly meant to tackle piracy, we're not entirely sure it adds up -- except maybe in government coffers.

Update: We're hearing that the bill titled PL118 has been withdrawn in the face of overwhelming common sense.

[Thanks, Ricardo]

Portuguese opposition party wants 'terabyte tax,' voters want a new opposition party originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashdot  |  sourceTech Eye  | Email this | Comments