The Supertalent Luxio comes pre-loaded with the 2.5MB SecureLock application. SecureLock allows you to create public and private partitions of any size totalling the capacity of the USB drive. So for example, this 64GB Luxio could be set up with a 50GB encrypted partition and a 14GB public partition. The encrypted partition is password protected and unreadable until the owner runs the SecureLock program and logs in. The public partition is always accessible.

In the event of a brute force password hack, the SecureLock software is supposed to automatically format the encrypted partition after 5 failed login attempts. Encrypted data is thus kept inaccessible to whomever attempts to gain unauthorized access, and unfortunately to forgetful owners as well.

Sounds good so far except PCSTATS quickly discovered a way around these security measures… we’ll go over all of that momentarily.

 The 64GB SuperTalent Luxio USB flash drive retails for about $140USD ($160CDN) and is covered by a limited life-time warranty from the manufacturer. The SecureLock application is stored on the device along with a copy of the PDF user manual. The drive has a loop for a lanyard though none is supplied, instead Supertalent bundle a small leather carry case to protect the gleaming fake wood grained plastic case from scratches.

The Luxio measures 77 x 9 x 21mm in size and has a red LED at one end to indicate data transfer activity. The drive is USB1.1 and USB2.0 compatible, peak transfer rates are 200X, or just under 30MB/s.

The drive and encryption software are compatible with all recent Windows 2000/XP/Vista operating systems and can be used for Vista’s Readyboost.

USB Drive AES-256 Encryption

The encryption tools supplied with SuperTalent’s Luxio 64GB USB drive are entirely optional, you don’t have to use them if you don’t need to. For anyone traveling with upwards of 64GB of data on a USB drive however, encryption should be right up there with travel medial insurance. Don’t leave home without it!

Before we can secure data on the Supertalent Luxio, we’ll need to define a few parameters first. This is accomplished in the same manner as the Kingston DataTraveler Elite that PCSTATS previously reviewed – a 128-bit AES encrypted USB stick, now superceded by the AES-256 DataTraveler Vault series.

With the Luxio USB drive plugged into the PC, launch the SecureLock application and assign a password, password hint and set the size of the public and private partitions.

The software can partition the Luxio drive in two partitions only, with as much of the 64GB space devoted to the "encrypted" private partition as the user wishes (minimum 10MB partition size). It will then format the entire USB drive for use. The drive should be empty before adjusting partition sizes or setting up encryption as the partitioning process removes all data except for the SecureLock application and PDF user manual.

After that USB drives quickly leapfrogged from 64MB to 128MB, 512MB and then 1GB, 4GB and now 16GB and 64GB!USB memory has gotten to the level where you could run an entire operating system off the drive… though don’t do that. USB flash memory isn’t quite the same as hard drives or solid state drives, and technically speaking after X-number of reads and writes data can no longer be written.

It takes the average person years to write/read that much data onto a USB memory drive.

In any event, with a peak data read speed of 29.87MB/s and write speeds of 12.8MB/s, Supertalent’s Godfather-series 16GB USB drive (model STP16GGRBK) is an inexpensive way to carry a lot of data.

It’s not the fastest USB drive on the market, nor does it offer any kind of encryption, but for day-to-day data transfer it’s hard to argue with $35 for 16GB storage.