Tech Reaction

Our good friends at Patriot Memory have sent us the new Patriot Bolt USB Flash Drive. Bolt is available in the following capacities: 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. It comes with its very own built in security features to help protect your important documents. It will definitely help ease your mind if, one day, you find your flash drive missing. It comes with a 256-bit encryption algorithm built in. AES stands for Advanced Encryption Standard and is a symmetric key encryption technique. AES is secure enough to protect classified information up to the top secret level, which is the highest security level. Also, the limit on password attempts, ten attempts, before reformatting itself, is a very valuable feature. Every little bit of additional security these days is a major plus in our eyes. Today we will be looking over  the 8GB version of the new Bolt series.

Packaging, Specifications and Features:

Patriot Bolt:

The orange and black color scheme of the Bolt series has an aesthetically pleasing look to it. As you can tell from the pictures above, the Bolt is very petite. This is another positive feature in our book, especially if you carry it on a key chain like we do.

Plug and Play:

When you first plug-in the Patriot Bolt, you will be greeted with this pop-up. Now the extra security option is there if you need it, but it does not force you to use it. We think this is a good idea and we are glad Patriot gives you the option to turn the password protection on and off. Patriot has included a very user-friendly interface with their flash drive. If you want to set up password protection, it is only a click away, as you will see below.

Setting up Password Protection:

If you choose to setup the password protection, you will be taken to the screen on the left (above). As you can see, you have the option to insert up to a 16 character password, which exponentially raises the security of the device.  Once the password is set, you will see the picture on the right (above) and you have successfully secured your Bolt.

When you have finalized your password, you will see the above screen every time you log off or plug-in the Bolt.

From the ‘Enter Password’ screen you will then see one of the two screens above. Notice that it will give you the ten limit countdown if you do not enter the correct password.

The screenshot on the left is the ninth wrong password attempt. When we entered an incorrect password for the tenth time we were greeted with the screenshot on the right after about 30 seconds. We are happy to report that it does a very effective job at reformatting, and does it extremely fast, before you know what is going on.

Read / Write:

From the above charts, you can see that the Bolt reaches manufacturer stated speeds and even surpasses them in our tests. It is always nice to have a product go above and beyond the  manufacturer’s claims!

Conclusion:

We are very impressed with the added security of the Bolt. It will help give you piece of mind knowing that you can use the AES 256bit hardware encryption if needed. The days of unsecured flash drives are finally behind us! The reformatting, after 10 failed password attempts, is a great addition to the Bolt. The user-friendly interface to setup the password protection and the fact that Patriot Memory does not force you to use it, is a welcomed bonus. With the small design of the Bolt, it fits in tight places with ease. In the past, we have had bulky flash drives that were not so easy to fit into tight spaces without rearranging some wires. If we were really forced to find something wrong with the Bolt, we would be hard-pressed to find it.  Patriot Memory makes up to a 64GB Bolt edition, so it is a far stretch to say that disk space would be an issue.

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We give the Patriot Bolt flash drive the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!