LaCie certainly seems to have got its money's worth from designer Neil Poulton, releasing a range of devices from portable hard drives to media streamers such as the LaCinema Rugged that sport his ruggedised, stylish design.

The latest on this list is the LaCie Rugged Safe, which looks almost exactly the same aside from a fingerprint sensor, which is central to the functionality of the product.

Poulton's design isn't just for show, though, and in addition to the rubber band around the exterior of the drive adding to durability and helping to prevent dents and scratches, internal anti-shock rubber bumpers help to ensure that the drive is well protected.

The Rugged Safe comes with a USB power cable and a USB data cable. It is advised that both are attached during initial setup, but (provided your PC can provide enough power through USB) just the data cable should be sufficient thereafter.

We had a couple of minor issues here in that the drive wasn't detected using an un-powered USB hub so had to be connected to the main unit under a desk. This is a little inconvenient for a device that requires fingerprint access, though users with a more accessible setup or those using a powered hub shouldn't have any problems. Alternatively there are two Firewire 800 ports here for those who can benefit from this faster standard.

LaCie Safe Manager is used to manage and configure fingerprint access and this is supplied on the drive. A straightforward wizard initially requests a password and login and you are then asked which finger you would like to use to record the initial administrator access.

It's possible to store up to 10 fingerprints here, and LaCie recommends creating at least two administrators (in case one isn't available) with two fingerprints each (in case a finger gets injured). It's a flexible system, then, and although you're prompted to format the drive after a fingerprint has been correctly recorded, any fingerprint data that has been saved will be retained during this process.

An LED above the fingerprint reader tells you whether the device is locked or unlocked and in the former state you simply have read-only access to the software and documentation provided. Swipe your finger across the sensor, and in a few seconds you're granted access to any additional data.

We found both the setup procedure and the sensor itself to be very accurate in our tests, correctly granting access each time and with a delay of no more than a few seconds.

Files that are simply dragged and dropped onto the Rugged Safe are automatically encrypted en-route, but LaCie also provides the Genie Backup Assistant software to help automate the process. Using this it's possible to perform full or incremental backups, set up schedules, backup email accounts, contacts, profiles, media files and other categories as well as use compression and encryption. The software is simple and straightforward to use, offering just enough flexibility to cater for most people's needs.

The Rugged Safe is available in 500GB and 1TB capacities for £160 and £260 respectively so it isn't particularly cheap, though online discounts do make it competitive enough to recommend. With this in mind, it's not really a solution for those who feel standard encryption would do the job, particularly as software such as TrueCrypt is available for free, but if biometric access is a must this is a fast and straightforward way of going about it.

Verdict
LaCie's Rugged Safe is fast, easy to use and offers a number of levels of security for those concerned about unwanted parties accessing sensitive data. Although it's more expensive and, due to the automatic encryption, quite a bit slower than more basic rivals, we can't really fault the way it goes about the process.

Company: LaCie

Contact: 0844 880 6896

Tags: truecrypt universal serial bus hard disk drive neil poulton fingerprint recognition light-emitting diode personal computer security