Hardware Geeks

Last week UPS dropped by with the SanDisk Ultra backup 64GB, a one touch backup solution for your pocket. But it’s more than just a backup solution it’s an all in one keep yourself safe solution.

When you first see the SanDisk Ultra Backup, it looks like any other USB Flash drive, typical size of a USB Flash Drive nice little design, a hole for a lanyard and it has a sliding dongle that locks into place so it won’t push back in when you insert it into a USB port which I think is cool since a lot of companies neglect to lock the dongle into place. But anyway there is something different about this USB Flash drive, no it isn’t the fact it has 64GB, it’s the backup button just below the dongle making it probably one of the smallest one touch backup solutions around.

At first when I read the press release about the SanDisk Ultra Backup, my conclusion was it’s just a gimmick and probably doesn’t work right. But surprisingly it did work right and it also was extremely easy to set up.

Setup was simple, you insert the USB Flash drive into any USB port and you will get two Auto Play windows. One to install the included software and the other is your storage folder. You basically have two partitions on the drive, one simulates a CD Drive (has the software) the other appears as the removable storage drive.

Once the software is installed you simply tell it what types of files you want to back up or if you want to be specific you can even chose what folder to backup. You can do this all in less than 5 steps.  After the initial backup you need do nothing. The next time you want to backup, just insert the drive wait for the SanDisk software to load (it loads automatically) and just hit the backup button.

I tested the transfer speeds of the SanDIsk Ultra Backup on three of my systems and it averaged a transfer speed of 8.43 MB/s, while at times it did peek in the 10 MB/s range.

For those worried about security you can password protect your backup, and there is AES hardware encryption.

But the SanDisk Ultra isn’t just a backup solution as I said in the intro of this post, it’s also in my opinion an all in one keep yourself safe solution. The Drive also has some included software called U3, the U3 software will allow you to install applications onto your Flash Drive such as FireFox and OpenOffice. You can even install games like Sodoku or Poker.

So if you go to let’s say your girlfriends house and you want to browse porn while she’s in the shower and don’t want to leave any traces of your activity on your computer. You simply launch FireFox from your Flash Drive, browse to porn sites and she won’t know because the History is saved onto the Flash Drive.

You can even check your emails from a mail program installed onto your Flash Drive. While it seems the majority of the programs available are free there are some that will cost you a few dollars.

Overall I really like the SanDisk Ultra Backup, it’s small, easy to use, secure and just freaking cool because of the U3 Software tool. Because of that we award it our 5 Star Kick Ass Award!

The USB SanDisk Ultra Backup Flash Drive is available in 8, 16, 32, and 64 GB models with a starting price of $49.99 for the 16 and $277.99 for the 64.

For more information visit http://sandisk.com/Products/Item(2723)-SDCZ40-064G-A11-SanDisk_Ultra_Backup_64GB_USB_Flash_Drive.aspx

Post Tags: review  storage  backup  sandisk  ultra backup 

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