Corsair Flash Padlock 2GB Flash Drive Review

Using a gum pack to compare the Corsair Padlock helps show its real size. Notice that it is quite thick.

Since the drive is so large, it blocks adjacent USB ports whether above, below, or right beside.

Build quality is nothing more than average. Since the Corsair Padlock contains a battery, one would hope that it would at least be water resistant, but it isn't. You can probably bet that if this drive gets washed, dropped in the water, etc. that it will not survive. Using the provided lanyard proved that this was not an excellent method for securing the drive either. Having snagged the drive on my desk while standing up, the lanyard actually pulled between the two halves of the flash drive and it fell to the ground.

Flash Padlock - Locking it down
The main feature of the Corsair Padlock flash drive is the built in security. This is accomplished by the keypad which is part of the drive. Unlike some other flash drives out on the market, the Corsair Padlock does not provide any sort of data encryption, but instead deactivates the drive until it is unlocked via the appropriate PIN. The drive ships completely unlocked so that it may be used as any other flash drive and requires the user to set a PIN before the security is activated, but can be used without a PIN as well.

Corsair provides an instruction manual with the drive that has detailed step by step instructions of how to set your PIN and lock the drive down. You PIN can be anything as long as it is between 1 and 10 digits. They also provide the instruction manual available on their website and on the drive via PDF. Setting my pin was as simple as holding the key button down, putting my pin in twice, and waiting 15 seconds for the lock to enable.

Unlocking the drive is even easier as you only have to press the key button and then enter your PIN. Entering an incorrect PIN will make the red LED flash although you can instantly try again and again since it doesn't lock you out after any amount of failed attempts. If entered correctly, the green unlock light will flash and you then have 15 seconds to insert your drive into an available USB port. Locking of the drive is handled automatically. Once removed you have the option of waiting for the drive to automatically lock after 15 seconds or you can press the key button. When the drive locks, the red lock light will flash to let you know it is locked.

The unique ability of the lock is that it completely disables the drive from access by the OS and it doesn't just stop you from reading the data. If you plug the drive into an available USB port when the drive is locked, the drive does not even show up in the Device Manager or Disk Management. Only after successfully unlocking the drive will the OS see that the drive is there and you will be able to access the data.

This brings up the issue of what are you going to do if you forget your PIN? If the PIN is unknown there is no way to get the data off of it. However, Corsair will let you RMA the drive for a new one. When I first was reading about the drive, I noticed that it had your standard CR3202 3V battery in it and thought that I could simply pull the battery out and it would reset much like the BIOS on a motherboard. After doing some searching on Corsair's forums I have learned that this is not true and you still won't be able to get into your flash drive. Corsair also offers an online service to store your PIN if you choose to use it. Short of writing your password down on a piece of paper and slipping it under your keyboard as usual, this is your only option to retrieve your PIN's used for your Corsair Padlock. You can store your PIN very easily with their PIN registration service. No registration is necessary; all that you need is an email address, password, and PIN.

This then leads into another issue of what happens when the battery dies? Since it is neither user replaceable nor a rechargeable battery this leaves the user with few options. Corsair will openly replace the flash drive in the event the battery dies (if the drive is in its three year warranty period) and if you need to retrieve data off of the drive you can plug it into any USB port and it will power the keypad to unlock it. Good, everything seems to be covered except for arrogance in not registering your PIN.

HD Tach showing speed and CPU Utilization.

SiSoftware Sandra Benchmark

Running the drive through the HD Tach benchmark produced the same results that I was able to get with Sandra and my file copy test. The drive came in with an average read rate of 27.9MB/s and a burst speed of 29.2 MB/s. It is important to note that the drive was utilizing 10% of the CPU as well.

To perform some real world testing on the Corsair Padlock, I created a 1GB set of RAR files (50MBx20) and used robocopy to copy them to the drive. This is a little more accurate than just using a stopwatch and some calculation, as it takes care of it automatically. After copying the files to the flash drive for the write speed, I then copied the same 1GB data set back hard drive to obtain the read speeds. The drive performed well, coming in with a 6.93 MB/s write speed and 27.00 MB/s read speed. While there are faster drives on the market, the Corsair Padlock holds its own.

Recap
After all the testing and daily use of the drive, the Corsair Padlock is a solid offering for those that do not want to spend a lot of money to protect their data. The 1GB drive comes in at $30 MSRP and $40 MSRP for the 2GB drive. Its intuitive and easy to use security system makes it great for those that are less technologically inclined and the speed of the drive won't leave you waiting in pure frustration. The Padlock security system provides plenty of protection for the majority, but those that need to protect confidential, classified, or other sensitive data will want to look elsewhere.

Don't Miss...

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