WiebeTech ToughTech Secure Q Hard Drive Enclosure
The ToughTech Q enclosure includes plenty of features and extras to make the price worthwhile if you need a versatile and secure drive for business use or professional grade home use.
Ease of Use, Performance: 20/25
Look & Feel: 23/25
Features 20/25
How much I enjoy 20/25
Total: 83/100
The Wiebetech ToughTech Secure Q is a hard drive enclosure with a full set of extras like FireWire 400 and 800 cables, eSATA cable and even secure USB keys. The ToughTech Q uses a large capacity hard drive as the heart of the enclosure but has plenty of features from the enclosure and the extras that come with it.
The ToughTech Secure Q I received is the FireWire 800 version with a 1 terabyte drive and also comes with Prosoft Data Backup software as well as the slew of extras. Included with the ToughTech Q is a FireWire 800 cable, FireWire 800/400 cable, eSATA cable, USB 2 cable, three USB AES encryption keys with lanyards and a stand.
The AES encryption keys allow users to have a secure drive only usable with the encryption key but handy enough to just have to plug the key in the front USB connection to allow the authorized user access to the drive. The AES key for the ToughTech Secure Q uses the smaller Mini B USB connection instead of the larger USB connection for an overall smaller key.
Security comes from the fact that there are 2 to the 128 power of possible combinations for key codes using these AES keys and you can even purchase a programmer or replacement keys from WiebeTech. Security aside you have a nice aluminum enclosure with the internal hard drive along with a circuit card for all the connections.
The drive whether you install it or it is preinstalled sits on four silicone rubber anti-shock mounts that allow vibration and movement to be isolated. The internal circuit card connects to the drive with the usual SATA and power connections for SATA drives and installing one is as easy as any other enclosure I have used.
Once your drive is in or you have unpacked the drive getting things running is pretty simple, you pick your connection method from USB to eSATA or FireWire and plug in the drive to your computer and the power adapter to your outlet. The back of the drive has all the connections depending on your model and you have plenty of choices.
The drive was ready out of the box already having been formatted and I went right to installing the included backup software and letting some backups rip. During the review period the worst happened to my computer, the motherboard died and I had a backup situation that was no longer a review.
Before I built my work computer from the ground up I worked from my spare computer with the backup on the ToughTech drive but the backup to restore was not all that easy. The Prosoft Data Backup 3 software did not see the backup jobs I had saved on the ToughTech drive and I had to contact support to get the software working correctly.
The Prosoft backup software does work well and once I had the program looking in the right spot, an advanced feature I had to set the program up for, everything worked fine. I had backups of my work files and my mail folders and getting things working did take a little time because I could not get the backup to work quickly.
The backup software does work but it should not have been that difficult to have my backup jobs restored, the idea behind backup software is an easy way to rescue your data once the crash occurs. I really did not care for the program even after I did get things working, I just think you should be able to point backup software at the file you want to restore and it should work.
I also did some benchmark testing on the ToughTech drive now that I am back up and running with my new computer and the drive performs well with Firewire 400, USB and eSATA connections. I am getting comparable speeds with 35 Mbps with Firewire 400, 73 Mbps with eSATA and 36Mbps for USB 2 speeds while using HD Tune for my testing.
I also tested another enclosure side by side for eSATA and USB 2 and was getting 29 Mbps for USB and 52 Mbps for eSATA so the drive does perform faster than another hard drive enclosure using the same connections. The ToughTech Secure Q is a good drive enclosure and is simple to use but the included software might not be my first choice for backup and restore protection.
I have used Norton in the past and prefer the ease of use that software package gives me but I am also used to it so the choice would of course be up to the user. The ToughTech Secure Q drive enclosure does a great job at what it is made for and is a stylish looking enclosure as well as good for heat dissipation.
The enclosure has an aluminum body with plastic front and back panels so the main body of the enclosure will help dissipate heat while the front plastic panel has vent holes. All the connections except for the AES key are on the rear so using the drive on a desktop is made simple.
I highly recommend the WiebeTech ToughTech Secure Q if you’re looking for a secure way to store data but the enclosure does come at a price. The model I received with a 1 terabyte drive runs for about $300 with the preformatted 1 TB drive and for use with FireWire 800.