Ever come across situations where you need to securely access your entire hard drive? Or situations where you want to share large files with one another, only to find that email doesn’t support the large file or that you are frustrated with the long time it takes to upload it? Does the thought of storing your sensitive files in the cloud bothers you? Or do you want to edit your files remotely with no additional copies created? iTwin might just have that solution for you.

iTwin, as Penn-Olson puts it, is a “reinvented form of thumbdrive allows file secure, wireless local file-sharing between two computers without any cables”. iTwin consists of a pair of identical USB dongles. How it works?

1. Plug iTwin into a local computer and install it.
2. Share your files onto the iTwin Folder which comes in the form of a virtual disks (accessible from within Windows Explorer – Local Files and Remote Files)
3. Detach one half and plug it into your remote computer.
4. Any files copied to the Local Files disk on one computer can then be accessed from the other computer through its Remote Files disk and vice versa. This connection works as long as each computer has its iTwin dongle connected.

What distinguished iTwin from other Cloud storage tools such as Dropbox is that with iTwin, there is no storage limit (other than your own storage space on your local computer), and that the file is restricted to you only, because all data is encrypted by a cypto-key that resides only on the paired halves. To me, the selling point of iTwin is its security as well as ease of usage. Files are more secure because it is, essentially, stored on your own computer and not on the cloud, and your remote data can only be accessed if you have the physical iTwin with you. Other than that, to add more security, you can also set a password for your iTwin, and if that doesn’t convince you, you can also remotely disable your iTwin should you lose it. iTwin also provides you access to your computer’s entire hard drive and any attached storage, which makes it better than conventional USB Flash Drive that has limited storage capacity.

The good thing: When I first tested out iTwin, it turned out to be a good experience and I actually loved it. It was amazingly simple to just drag and drop your files from your local computer and it would show up in the remote computer. Besides that, iTwin also allows editing directly into the files without the need to create a second copy or to transfer it again to the local computer, unlike the conventional USB.

The bad thing: The limitation with iTwin is that the local computer must be online to enable access towards the files on the iTwin. In other words, it must also be switched on. iTwin took a step further by ensuring that your sleep or hibernate functions are disabled when the iTwin is plugged in. Another downside is that sharing files with multiple parties is not possible. Only the user of the remote computer can access files from the local computer.

Perhaps one point worth mentioning is that, how many users would actually buy iTwin. The iTwin is available to the public at USD99 on iTwin’s website, and works with Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Mac OS X. With the various cloud storage tools out there which many are familiar with, such as Dropbox, and with simple file sharing tools such as Google Docs, the group of users who really need that extra layer of security which cloud storage tools don’t offer is actually quite small a target group. How many of the rest would actually get their hands on the iTwin. Would just focusing on enterprise users be a better target for the company?