ADATA offers some best value 3.0 USBdrives. It is a durable shock proof USB that comes with a basic design. With blue and black combination S102 reflects simple but yet effective look. As you can see it is a 32GB 3.0 USB drive which is capable of giving you 68Mb/s of maximum data Read rate and 30 Mb/s of data write rate. But it is only possible to achieve if your system has USB3.0 port. Compared to this USB2.0 are 50% less in performance. USB3.0 is taking slow pace in the market but as the price goes a bit down this type of USBdrives are going to replace the existing 2.0 interface very soon. With a new version and upgraded interface, it is capable of offering you high data transfer rate instantly. You do not require to wait back for transferring a video or software for long time. Due to backward compatibility support, that means still you can use USB3.0 device on USB2.0 interface, it is handy to buy. But you cannot expect that high amount of transfer rate on old interface. With common interface your transfer ratio rises. ADATA has termed this has best value USB drive and to some extent is perfect. I am still using a 32GB USB2.0 drive. And compared to that S102 is much faster. For laptop this is one of the best alternatives. As USB 3.0 is getting a bit popular among devices, USB’s are the prime and portable needs. They are cheaper, easy to carry and durable. Consumers are willing spend high amount to buy a external storage with high speed transfer rate.
The cover clearly shows that it is capable of reading upto 100mb/s of data. ADATA did not tweak the design much. With the USBADATA offers a 60 day trial of Norton Internet Security and two important tools which offer you quick USB accessibility. They are UFD to Go & OS to Go. Let’s check about this software in detail. I had gone through a number of different models that offers similar type specification. So it simply means the end user has multiple choices to buy or choose from USB3.0 category. S102 is capable of giving you maximum 68MB per second data transfer rate. That means you can copy a 1GB of video in 20 to 30 seconds. But yet we had not received the much rate while testing it. Depending on the hardware you are have, this transfer rate varies. And it is applicable to SSD’s and other external devices also. You need the exact hardware standard to get that much rate. Or else it just limited to 10 to 20% of the exact amount mentioned. Having a USB 3.0 storage at the one side, and a older or regular computer with common hard drive on the other end, does not means you can still manage to get that much transfer ratio. Because the hard drive RPM decide how much amount of data it allows to read in given time. The faster it is, the faster will be the rate.
Along with good data transfer rate ADATA S102 offers some handy utility to make your work easier. I realy liked UFD to Go. It is a kind of onGo feature that allows you to quick sync your folders, bookmarks, and secure your pc also. There are number of features which are highlighted and we will see each of them one by one. With this you can also download OS to Go from the official website. This tool makes your USB a bootable device. If you have Netbook which does not have any optical drive, then you can use OS to Go, and create a simple bootable disc by transferring the Windows DVD content to it. We will see more details on the same below. I will explain each features of the software one by one in details so that you can use it with the drive. Ample of time users ignore the facility or featured software the USB manufacturer’s offer. They are built with security and safety purpose. Let’s start with UFD to Go.
UFD to Go:
Features: Below some are the most common features of UFD to Go. The utility comes inside the USB drive or you can download that from the official site or just click here – Download ADATA UFD to Go Software . UFD to Go is a handy utility to be used with USB drive. It offers you :
- PC Lock — Lock your system so that no one can access it easily.
- Data Compression — Compressed data offers more storage space.
- Portable Email client — Carry your emails with you wherever you want with portable Outlook, Windows Mail.
- Browser sync — Carry your favourite bookmarks with your and sync with any web browser.
- Folder Sync — Sync any folder you want and update with few clicks
- Multi-Lingual — You can use UFD to Go in 17 different languages.
As you can see the above features this tool is very handy. After setup you have to activate the autorun.inf for this software. If your security or antivirus software blocks it, please put the same in exception list. You have to plug the USB drive and then run the setup of UFD to Go. It will install two things in the USB. First lets executable UFDtoGo.exe file and a Personal Data folder which will be used for updates. After connection the software popup a window on the screen and there is a small tray icon also. You must exist this properly before ejecting the drive. Lets checks all the available options in one by one:
The above screen is the first popup box of UFD to Go. The right part (1) list you the things you can do with this tool. Like the first of 128bit AES Data Encryption. This is a powerful encryption standard use to protect data. It happens that your USB get easily infected with virus or you share it with someone. The person tries to copy the data or try to modify/read it. If your data is encrypted with standards it remains secure. The things are safe login, pc lock, data compression, etc. The left side (2) are the list of options that allows you to configure the settings. We will check each of them one by one. The 3rd section in the image shows you the amount of space used. So it is quiet glimpse how much space is left. The Sync All buttons is a quiet access to sync all files, bookmarks, etc between PC and USB Drive.
Options Available under USB To Go:
1. Internet Options:
Under Internet Option, Favourite Sync is a dedicated section for safe browser and sync. It allows you to keep your bookmarks updated. There are only two browser options provided in it, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. I cannot see any other option to add a different web browser. It happen number of time that we do not carry our bookmarks with us which has some important links. With this option you get three choices. First sync the bookmarks only in PC. That means updating it in PC through USB, second updating both and third only updating bookmarks of USB drive. It is a nice handy tool to sync bookmarks quiet instantly.
The second tab under Internet Option is Safe Login. This feature allows you to keep a track of your website where you use login information. When you activate, it the feature ensure that your login is saved and you can then use the same from below list easily.
The third tab No Trace Browsing allows you to surf securely on any pc. Ample of time we use some other computer in office or at work. You can use your logins and people easily forget to logout or wipe out the saved passwords. UFD to Go offers you to surf safely and wipe out all saved information in the web browser. It is only applicable for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. After clicking on Activate, no history is saved or it is wiped out when you click on Delete Trace. So you do not require to remember the browser settings at all. When you clcik on Activate No Trace Internet Browsing the Start No Tracing Browsing button is enabled. You can choose all the traces with single click. It’s very valuable option for those who surf their company website or use bank sites for transactions on different computers.
2. Portable Outlook
Now this one is quiet useful for those who use Microsoft Outlook as their default email client. Your entire mails remains in your system hard drive, but you can quickly take backup or update it whenever you want. It is possible to configure Microsoft Outlook on more than one system. You can simply update the changes right through ADATA S102 Pro. As you can see the image above it has two tabs. The first is Create & Sync and the second is Backup. Both images are provided above. Backup offers you to keep a copy of all your emails in the USBand you can restore that very easily. It is very easy to configure.
3. Outlook Express: This section is dedicated for Outlook Express users. It is an older editoin of Email client which comes in Windows XP, offers similar option like above.
4. File Synchronization:
File Sync allows you to keep your file updated instantly with single click. The first tab My Documents is used to sync office documents, software folder, or any other thing that you want or update more frequently. It reminds me about breifcase, but that was very limited. File Synchronization allows you to not only sync files but to compress them so that it does not occupy much of your space. The limitation here is that you can only sync My Documents folder. That means whatever you need to copy has to be copied in My Documents. A same kind of folder is created inside the USB also. The small icon on the bottom right compresses the data to arrange more space for other files.
The second tab Folder Synchronization offers you to add a custom folder of your choice only. It gives you a small + button in the button that you can use to add a folder from the hard drive. The same is then created inside the USB drive also. You can sync anything in this. Multimedia files, presentations, etc. Whatever changes made are sync properly and the file on both ends are updated. The tool does not consume much time for configuration or sync. It is done instantly and that all is possible due to USB3.0 interface. And the last tab is Manage Encrypted Data. I will only recommend you to use this if you need to keep your data secure under all conditions. Because once you loss the password then the data will be locked forever. I had mentioned above that it uses a powerful encryption standard.
5. PC Lock: For those how forgets to lock their computer while working. It is same like a Windows Lock that works on time basis. For example you have set a time to lock the computer after 30 minutes. It will be locked even when you are working. It is good for stopping unauthorized access to the system files. It is not really very helpful but you have to keep the USB attached to unlock the system. It also offers you to put a customized image of your choice on the lock screen. There are no advance settings provided for this section.
6. Security Settings:
This is one of the crucial part of the tool. Use it only when you need it. You can encrypt the USB by AES 128 file encryption. Once the drive is locked no one can access the content without putting password. And if you forget the password I am doubtful that there is any way to recover that. Once the drive is locked you have to give the password every time when you insert the USB drive. It is a powerful feature but yet a bit risky as if you forgot the data you cannot access the internal content. It will not be visible unless you give the password. ADATA do not add option to recover password. So I will recommend you to stay alert while using this.
7. Settings:
You can modify the settings as per your need. There are only three tabs here. The General Settings, Sync All settings and Device Information. In General Settings you can De-activate the autorun.inf file. You can go in Sync All and add a automated behaviour to sync the files. You can set the options by clicking on box what you want to sync and setup a automatic time. This allows automatic sync process after a time interval. You do not need to click on Sync All each time. Device Information does not have any settings. It gives you detailed information the drive status. Whether it is synced or not, or it is encrypted or not. So to get a quick view on your drive status just click on Device information under Settings. It also gives you information related to Trace Browsing, Outlook folder, etc.
8.USB Device Lost & Found : An simple lost and found form that allows you to get your USB back only if the finder is interested. You can fill up and register the drive online. In case you lost it the finder can visit the official site and contact you. Not so effective but anyhow there is some help provided.
OS to Go
OS to Go is a nice tool provided by ADATA which offers you easy bootable OS through your USB drive. That means you can simply put your Windows installation in the USB drive and install Windows through that. This is a nice alternative for the system which does not come with optical drives. OS To Go needs Microsoft .Net framework. You can download just the installer or with .Net from the official website. As you can see the screenshot above, it is a very simple utility to create bootable USB drive. At the source side you have to provide the ISO or DVD and on the destination lies on USB. Remember that your entire data will be lost while making a bootable drive. So better backup it first.
Conclusion:
ADATA S102 Pro USB offers better data transfer rate and some easy to use tools that very handy. It is a durable USB drive that has solid body and it is termed a shock proof. The drive appears to be very useful for business as well as regular work. Adding UFD to Go makes the drive live with more backup and sync features. The cost of ADATA S102 32GB USB 3.0 Pen Drive is Rs.1,550.
