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 (3 star rating)
Written by: Justin Whitaker
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Portable, convenient storage is plentiful these days with numerous choices for USB flash drives, external HD enclosures and even massive capacity SSD drives on the horizon. But what about the security of your data that is so easily portable? Without any encryption or other password protection built into the USB drive, your data is left wide open to theft. The folks at n-Trance Security have focused their efforts to address these security concerns, and have developed the n-Tegrity Classic Fingerprint protected Personal Data Manager. This is a fancy name for a USB flash drive that has fingerprint protection built-in. A novel idea and it sounds like a great solution to security concerns - but how well have they executed on this idea? We take a close look at the n-Tegrity 1GB USB drive today to find out.
Design
The n-Tegrity is made of a blue and white plastic casing, with the fingerprint reader exposed only after sliding the cover open. This is a nice feature because it keeps the fingerprint reader protected when the drive is not being used. There is a small blue LED light on the front of the drive that flashes when the drive is in use. With the use of plastic, the weight of the drive has been kept low to a very reasonable weight of 20g (not even 1 ounce) and the overall size of the drive is very similar to other USB flash drives.
Other than the fingerprint reader, the physical design of the drive is pretty typical and does not differ from other USB flash drives on the market. It does not offer any water-proof casing or other rugged features that you might find on other USB flash drives, but the plastic casing feels solid and my testing showed that the drive will not break if it is dropped from a height of about 5-6 feet.
Features
- Fingerprint-protected 256MB to 4 GB flash drive
- Carries n-Pass Pro as the main application and device managing control
- Pre-installed applications including e-mail client, messengers, Skype
- User convenient Tray Menu
- Autorun-enabled feature for customer's applications
- User can add applications
Installation
The first step in the installation process is to initialize the n-Tegrity drive. After plugging in the drive to a USB port, Windows immediately recognizes the drive and starts the setup program. The initialization process involves generating a random RSA key, assigning a password to the drive and then scanning your fingerprints. The first step of generating a random RSA key is extremely easy – you move your mouse back and forth over an image displayed on the screen, and the setup program automatically generates a random key based on the movement of your mouse. I’m not really sure why the mouse movement provides a random RSA key in lieu of having the program automatically generate it without user involvement, but it only takes a couple of seconds anyway.
The next step is to scan your fingerprints. You have the choice of scanning each of your 10 fingers, but all that is really required is to scan one of your fingers. Even if you scan multiple fingers, this just allows you to choose which finger you want to use to activate the drive once it is locked. It does not mean that you are required to scan each finger when you are trying to activate the drive.
Finally, you need to enter your personal information with email address in order to setup your password. The password is required to be used only after you have scanned your fingerprint and the software has verified a match. This is an extra security step to make it even harder for someone to break into your USB drive to gain access to your data.
Once these steps are done, there are further personalization options available within the N-Pass software. You can choose to store contact lists, change encryption and security settings, user interface settings, and so on.
