The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C : What The Killing Pattern Of Dele Giwa And Exploding Hezbollah Pagers Have Got To Do With It
By Clifford Agugoesi
Dele Giwa, Nigerian journalist and editor of Newswatch magazine, was murdered when he opened the package with a bomb at his Ikeja, Lagos residence, south west, Nigeria, on October 19, 1986, during the reign of the longest serving military head of state of Nigeria General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
That particular incident, no doubt, changed the way journalists approached their personal safety and security especially, while working under a non democratic dispensation, and the need to prioritise these at all times, even while being committed to journalism and nation-building.
On 17th and 18th September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah, exploded simultaneously in two separate events across Lebanon and Syria in an alleged Israeli attack. What have these far too separated incidents have to do with a product review? The review of a USB drive, for that matter?
Quite a lot. Let me explain. Dele Giwa’s death, via a letter bomb, has served to sensitise journalists and media people that not all packages addressed in their names are friendly, and, hence, the fierce urgency in exercising utmost caution in opening such packages, even when their sources are all too well known to them. Ditto newshounds covering the Israel-Hezbollah war. So, safety and security have assumed a primary place of importance on the priority list of journalists. With digital gaining traction, we are no more talking about physical safety and security but cyber safety and security.
With the above background in mind, you can begin to appreciate better the nexus between the Dele Giwa and the exploding Hezbollah pager story and the review you are about to read. Democracy is a good environment to practice journalism and it is not debatable that journalists would readily embrace packages sent to them via courier under a democracy than the other way round!
Dele Giwa and Hezbollah officers rang loud in my brain as I took delivery of The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe, courtesy of Western Digital and SanDisk, through their agency in Lagos, Nigeria, Wednesday, November 20, 2024. I could not but ask myself: What if the product is not what was promised to be sent for the review? What if the product suffered corruption along the value chain? What if the product got accidented while it was being couriered to me, will it still serve its intended purpose and make the review credible as it is meant to be? What if the product was coming from an adversary masquerading as an agent? And, more unwritten questions.
The above thoughts notwithstanding, I assured myself that though journalism and the journalism landscape are witnessing dynamic change globally, Nigeria was not an exception, “so the review has got to go on regardless of real and or imagined physical and cyber security/safety challenges!” I wore Psalm 23 as my breastplate.
As I looked at the storage space on the product packaging (128GB, which is a lot of space), I sighed that had it come a month before, I would not have coughed out the kind of money to buy an external disk requested by the engineers at Berger Yard, near Mile 2, to transfer the files from my faulty Lenovo PC, before fixing it.
The Sandisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C
FEATURES
*The 2-in-1 flash drive with reversible USB Type-C and Type-A connectors
*Seamlessly move content between compatible smartphones, tablets, and computers
*Dual-purpose swivel design helps protect connectors and features a keyring hole to take your drive on the go
CAPACITY – 128GB
Connector
– USB-A
– USB-C
COMPATIBILITY
– USB Type-C devices (phones, laptops, and tablets)
– iOS 10.0.2+
– Android 11+
– macOS v.10.9+
– Windows 10+
SEQUENTIAL READ PERFORMANCE – 400MB/s
Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 1
In The Box: SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C Flash Drive
Warranty: 5-Year Limited Warranty
Dimensions (L x W x H): 1.75″ x 0.48″ x 0.34″
Weight: 12.2gms
Model Number: SDDDC4-128G-G46
Operating Temperature: 0°C to 35°C
Non-Operating Temperature: 10°C to 70°C
Certifications: CE, FCC, ICES, EAC, UKCA, RCM,PB, and more.
Product features, capacity, compatibility and sequential read performance appear on the packaging that looks like the packaging for an adult Gillette Sensor.
The reviewer’s business is to compare real life user experience with the claims on the product packaging. I am an actuality reporter covering the ICT sector, but I must confess, I am not a tech expert. So, how do I interrogate the information on the product packaging and relate my experience in a manner that non tech experts are at home with?
I reckon that I should be able to convey in clear terms what presents the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C Flash Drive as a unique product worth purchasing and why users should prefer it to competition products available. To compensate for my technical inadequacy, I invited over to my office, Engineer X, next door, who is more or less, the go-to-guy, in fixing devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and so on, so I could tap into his brains. On Showing him the packaging housing the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C, which I have not yet unveiled, he excitedly retorted: “You have an asset on your hands.” “I am familiar with SanDisk products and I can attest to their goodness,” he said. I decided to play Thomas and told him “the test of the pudding is in the eating.”
Having assured myself of the availability of the three most important considerations for an online journalist before publishing a story namely: secure workstation(in this case, my Lenovo PC) copious broadband and uninterrupted power supply (my generator has enough fuel in case of unexpected outage from EKEDC), I signaled to Engineer X for us to start.
I quickly brought out the brand new Serial ATA 2.5 HDD External Case(External Disk) I told you about earlier and asked him to transfer some of the the files straight into the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C, while I watched keenly. He unveils the Premium Metal Design Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C and in no time inserts it into the External Disk.
From literature already available in the public domain, the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C Flash Drive is an affordable “On-The-Go” or OTG flash drive which has quite an innovative design combining both a USB Type-A connector with a USB Type-C on one single device. The implication is that users can simply plug the Type-C connector into their phone or compatible USB Type-C device, transfer files to the drive and then plug it into their PC or laptop and transfer the files off in no time flat (or vice versa).
The sequential read performance of the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe is rated at 400 MB/s but we must necessarily subject the claim to real-world testing and benchmarking. To get started, Engineer X inserted the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe into the Serial ATA 2.5 HDD External Case and transferred 30 high resolution photos about 300 MB), which was completed in no time. In a similar fashion, Engineer X transferred some stories in MS Word(about 5GB) into the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe. He then unplugged the drive and inserted it into the Type-C port of my Lenovo PC and copied the high resolution photos and MS Word document onto it. Both transfers from the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe into my Lenovo PC were completed instantly.
I can testify that using the drive for its intended purpose in transferring photos or smaller files is amazing!
I prevailed on Engineer X to further interrogate the device’s performance with larger files. Since he is a video buff, I requested him to copy out some video from his work USB drive and transfer same into SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe and to delete it afterwards. He copied a 10GB video file to the drive which took about 4 minutes. I was fascinated with the transfer speeds, especially coming from my experience with other USB drives.
My take with the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe is that it potentially proves to be a good companion for journalists covering events like Mobile World Congress(MWC) and Gitex, where they would likely have need to download content from speakers and work on these on their systems back in their hotel rooms and or their home offices, without much stress.
The product’s dual-purpose swivel design helps protect connectors and features a keyring hole to take one’s drive on the go. On the one hand, this is an advantage, but on the other, it is a disadvantage. How do I mean? Conventional USB drives, including telco modems I have been used to over time, come with covers. Unfortunately, our review product does not come equipped with a cover. This deficiency will surely discourage security-conscious users(like my humble self) who might fear that the drive might easily be infected with viruses once unplugged. I am not sure that the swivel will last long although this is a function of usage frequency and carefulness of usage. All I can say is that if you use the drive with utmost caution it would last for some time before it weakens and breaks off at some point.
In rounding off, I would describe the SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C in my native Igbo dialect as o di mkpumkpu na-eme ire(the small device that performs incredibly)! Using it in strict compliance with the manufacturer’s prescription is one sure way to savour its manifold value propositions that reveal with its usage over time, whatever the drawbacks might be.
- Agugoesi is Editor-in-Chief at Cyber Era NG.
