IronKey's website doesn't say how much it will charge in future, and it really needs to be a lot more up-front about all this before its product can become a compelling consumer purchase. We checked with the company, it is said it will charge $20-50 per year, depending on the level of service you want, including anonyous, encrypted web browsing. However, password back-up and software updates will always be free, it pledged.

You'll see from the screengrabs that IronKey's software is reasonably good looking, though the brushed metal look is beginning to date in the Vista/Mac OS X 10.5 era. Incidentally, the read-only part of the drive does contain Mac OS X software, but we were unable to get the drive to mount on our MacBook Pro. IronKey doesn't state Mac compatibility, and while the company admitted it is working on Mac OS X code - and a Linux version - it won't talk timescales.

Finally, speed. IronKey claims read and write speeds of 15MBps and 29MBps, respectively. We copied across a folder containing 40 10MB files, duplicated the folder on the USB drive, then copied the copy back to the host PC. We recorded data transfer rates of 7.31MBps, 5.34MBps and 21.27MBps, respectively. Copying or duplicating lots of small files always takes more time than one, big one, but is closer to real-world usage.

The read score's what we'd have expected, but the write speeds were rather slower than anticipated. Still, the drive didn't feel sluggish to use.

Related reviews

• Iomega eGo 160GB external hard drive
• LaCie Golden Disk 500GB external hard drive
• Icron WiRanger Wi-Fi connected USB hub
• Seagate FreeAgent Go 160GB external hard drive
• SanDisk Cruzer Pro, Enterprise secure USB Flash drives
• SanDisk 4GB Micro SDHC memory card
• LaCie Safe 250GB biometric hard drive

Verdict

Priced on a par with the likes of SanDisk's rival Cruzer Pro and Cruzer Enterprise - reviewed here - IronKey is pretty good value given the much more sophisticated level of physical and online security it provides. The write speed is a let-down, as is the need to cough up more cash year after year to get all the benefits - we'd have preferred just a higher up-front cost.

Still, if you wand the ultimate in USB and online data security, the IronKey appears to be it.

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