LABS GALLERY: Lexar JumpDrive SAFE S3000 FIPS Takes a Beating and Keeps on Reading

LABS GALLERY: Lexar JumpDrive SAFE S3000 FIPS Takes a Beating and Keeps on ReadingBy Matthew D. Sarrel

The first time I inserted the JumpDrive SAFE S3000 FIPS into my Windows Vista 64 PC, drivers were automatically installed and the JumpDrive icon appeared.

Double-clicking the JumpDrive icon opened the unencrypted volume. At this point, I could choose between running the PC or Mac OS application.

When the application launches, the user is asked for a passphrase. If the passphrase is entered incorrectly multiple times, the device deletes all data from itself.

After entering the correct passphrase, a lock icon appears in the system tray.

Finally, the SAFE volume appears as drive H:, which is accessible when the user is logged into the drive. Once the user logs out, the volume can no longer be accessed.

After several weeks of torture testing, the Lexar JumpDrive SAFE S3000 FIPS looked somewhat worse for wear, but continued to function as it did when new.

Here is another photo of the torture-tested JumpDrive.

For comparison, heres the normal USB flash memory after it took a dive off of the roof of my four-story building. Surprisingly, it still works.

The IronKey Enterprise S200 FIPS withstood a similar beating while looking (cosmetically) slightly worse for wear.