Review: Aluratek's Tornado Drive Swirls Bits Into RFID Territory

Aluratek even threw in an elegant black carrying case to match the sturdy black metal enclosure.

Tornado doesn't need external AC power adapters. Two USB bus power connections will do the job just fine. Even with its high tech security, the Tornado is backward compatible with USB 1.1. Tornado supports up to 250 GB 2.5 inch hard drives in its enclosure, so there's plenty of room for those mobile professionals that must carry music and video files along with corporate data files.

As tested, Tornado came with a Western Digital 250 GB Scorpio drive. Now that Samsung is making 2.5 inch 500GB hard drives available, it won't be long for the Tornado to turn into a Hurricane. For the DIY geeks, the case comes with its own screwdriver to change hard drives.

The RFID security is, simply, cool. The case comes with two RFID keys (they look more like keychain tags) that work by swiping them over a sensor area on top of the case. Users simply place or swipe over a RFID Security logo to lock or unlock a hard drive.

Even with its high tech encryption, setup was easy. Five steps and you're done with RFID. Plug-n-Play takes over the rest. Users will need to format and partition the drive on Windows XP or Vista, once the drive is discovered.

At just over $100, the Tornado is quite reasonable considering the powerful RFID encryption technology built into its electronics.