Lenovo Thinkpad USB Portable Secure Hard Drive

Encryption systems such as Vista’s Bitlocker, or third-party products such as Deslock, offer a high level of protection but generally require a correspondingly high level of configuration, ­ usually by trained IT staff.

The Thinkpad USB Portable Secure Hard Drive requires no special drivers or software to work. It’s a self-contained unit comprising a small external USB enclosure containing a 5,400rpm hard drive, protected by 128-bit AES encryption. The top of the enclosure houses a numeric keypad and a single-status LED.

Plug the hard drive into a free USB socket and nothing happens, save for the status LED lighting up red to indicate the drive is in Standby mode. This is how the drive will appear to anyone without the correct credentials. In this mode, the PC won’t even recognise that a drive has been attached, so there’s no way of attempting to access the stored data from the PC.

Keying in a valid password ­ – in reality a Pin of between six and 24 digits – ­ switches the drive into User Mode. The status LED turns green, and you can then use the drive as normal.

Up to 10 passwords can be set. To do this, you must use a special key combo to enter Admin Mode. If you manage to forget all your passwords, you will have no choice but to erase the drive and start again. You can do this by using a special key sequence ­ unfortunately, so can anyone who may wish to destroy your data. Using the drive also requires a little thought as it will lock itself if the PC is put to sleep, effectively causing an unsafe removal when the PC wakes up.

The Thinkpad USB Portable adds a lot of security with only a little inconvenience. Recommended for anyone working with sensitive data.