Customer Reviews

Black Box Innovations Personal Pocket Safe 1 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive PPS8100

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have this little dandy, and it does its job quite well. You enter a PIN number and then connect it to the USB port on your pc. If you dont input the right pin, you cant access your data..the drive wont even show up. Input the wrong pin number 3 times and it locks you out for a few minutes. That being said, its a good device to keep your data safe from the average nosy joe. I doubt that it would withstand a serious hacker or fbi agent trying to crack it, if you want something of that caliber then your going to have to pay $100+. But its a good deal for the money.

However, you would have to be clinically insane to use the provided information manager to store your 'valuable' data i.e. credit card numbers, account information, passwords, etc. The program that runs off the flash drive automatically checks for updates, which is a red flag IMHO. So I would just ignore that program entirely and just use the thing for storage. Also, kind of an afterthought, the thing does have a small battery inside it so i'm guessing that if the battery craps out your out of luck?? Anyways I wouldnt put anything on here that you couldnt survive without in case of an accident.

All in all a good buy.

It has become necessary to have different configurations for different passwords and my memory is not good enough to remember most of them. The Pocket Safe is invaluable when I travel. It took awhile for me to figure out how to use it but now I have no trouble getting it to work.

I am a college instructor, and I use one of these as my go-between, between classroom and home. Here are a few things that I have figured out that may help other users. 1) You can use the PPS software to keep the drive active for up to 60min. Without the PPS software running, you will have to constantly re-enter you PIN in order to keep the drive active (very annoying). Even if you don't use the PPS software, you can leave it running in the background, and it will hold the drive open for you. Go to Settings within the PPS software to choose how long you would like the drive to remain open (the max is 60min). 2) The PPS software won't run properly on Vista (anymore). To get it to work, you need right-click on the PPS .exe file, go to Properties, click on the Compatibility tab, and then choose Windows 2000 for the compatibility mode. You will only have to do this once, and then it should work from that point forward (even on different computers). I hope these tips help.

As a general review, the drives do work as advertised, but you should know that they are no longer supported by the manufacturer. Black Box Innovations is closing out all of their inventory (hence the low price), and they no longer provide any sort of tech support. I also have no idea how long the drive's battery life is. Presumably it has a re-chargeable battery that charges every time you use the drive, but even re-chargeables wear out. Just make sure to frequently back up your data.

UPDATE: My drive crashed in December 2011. I got less than one year's use out of it. I also lost a lot of work. I have two others that I now no longer trust. All are going into the trash (after I back over them with my truck).

September 2011.

I've had the 4GB version of this drive for about a year. Didn't use it much. I was going to put in some documents and the software failed with "This software cannot be used on this device". Called the MFG. hoping for some kind of update to the software. It took them about a day and a half to call back, but they did call. I was speaking to a customer support rep who sounded really sleepy (or doped out?) and she said the product was unsupported but they could offer me free backup on dropbox.com. That sounded strange as I don't think their company owns dropbox, so that's kind of like offering me a free search on google right? I asked "well gee, how does that work? do you have a way for me to recover data and load it up there?" She didn't know so she transferred me to another person who was "in that department". The second person was nice enough, but same thing. Product not supported and all they could offer me was dropbox. That's not recovering data...that's pointing me at a cloud storage service I already use.

The point is. Do NOT buy this product. Being able to use the drive is dependent on the software working (or it will lock back up after 30 seconds). The software seems to have failed. Most importantly: There is zero support for this drive.

Unfortunate. Unfortunate and a waste of money.

This is an excellent way to keep personal detailed information securely, especially Website UN & PW's.I had over 50 sets. They can be bout for less than $10. Search. DL

Black Box Innovations PPS8100 Personal Pocket Safe Flash Drive

I found this USB key to be as advertised. I do tax returns for a large number of clients and can't afford to have their personal information compromised. For this reason, I don't even want to use an on-line backup service. One word of advice though, unless your own memory is rock solid, REGISTER YOUR PIN with the company. If you forget your PIN and it's not registered, your Pocket Safe is then totally worthless. The company cannot (or will not) give you a way to reset it. I think it is both wise and safe to register your PIN. Your login is password protected and identity must be confirmed with security questions and answers that you make up when you register your PIN. If you think about it, for someone to gain access to your Pocket Safe's information, they would have to both find or steal it, and then hack into the company's webserver and gain access to the registration data. Incidentally, the company offers a on-line backup service for the information contained in your Pocket Safe, but I don't recommend that. In my opinion, it defeats the whole purpose of having the Pocket safe. Back up the info elsewhere if you wish -- but not on line.

AT FIRST I ORDERED ONE. THEN I ORDERED ONE MORE FOR BACK-UP. THEN I ORDERED FIVE MORE FOR GIFTS. AT THE PRICE AND WHAT IT CAN DO IT IS QUITE A DEAL.YOU CAN USE IT FOR EVERYDAY TO INCLUDE YOUR OWN WRITTEN WILL. LIFE IS TO SHORT NOT TO HAVE ONE. THANKS, JOE

Except for string clip device that doesn't work, this thing works real good. Will start entering stuff tomorrow. Buy the thing at Amazon--$12.00 cheaper than at [...]. Don't use the backup web site! That would be nuts. I will not even register the product. Why take the chance.

Holds all your personal information. Easy to access as long as You have a computer handy.