Hardware Kingston DataTraveler 300 256GB USB Review

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/08/02/kingston-datatraveler-300-256gb-usb-review/1

A simple USB key with 256GB of storage? Crickey! You can carry around the equivalent of 54 DVDs on a piece of plastic half the size of your finger, and it even includes privacy software too - but with a low write speed and high price, has Kingston crammed in more than it can chew?

 

My first thought was "If you lose that, you are boned".

I don't think I have ever even needed to move anything off my 16GB to take some files somewhere. A usb drive that big is just insane.

 

I rarely open my eyes wide when prices are thrown about bit-tech articles, but this one certainly was an exception. To lose something of such value is totally mental, and this is completely plausible. I'll stick to my "measly" 8GB flash drive, kthnx.

 

And I used to think my 2GB micro SD cards were compact!

I think the article might be looking over the fact that no-one really needs 256GB of data at one time. And honestly, whatever are you going to do that requires data at over 20MB/s?

 

With that kind of size I'd expect it to be used for backup purposes, but for backup purposes it does beg the question "Why use a USB stick?" because it's not like you need to be excessively portable. In my mind USB sticks are for ferrying documents about with you day-to-day and portable hard disks are for proper data storage. Say you were a graphic designer and had some ultra ultra high resolution posters that needed to go to the printers, lets be extremely generous and say they were 35GB each and you had 5. You plug in your USB stick at 9am, you need to be there for 12 and its half an hours drive. You're boned. So instead you just plug in your 2.5" hard disk and voila, it fits in the car and your bag very nicely.

I think in all honesty Kingston just want to be able to say they have the largest capacity USB stick on the market.

 

That's ridiculous

 

For £565, I'd rather get seven of these WD 500GB USB powered drives. 3.5TB of storage. OK, it doesn't have the random access times of flash, but even buying six of them and then a 16GB Corsair GT and 16GB Corsair Survivor costs the same. Speed out of the GT, ruggedness from the Survivor and sheer capacity out of the WD Passports.

edit: For £491, you could get 256GB of Corsair GT 16GB sticks... less convenient to carry around 16 sticks than one, agreed.

 

I first though I read 256mb, and was wondering what was so special, and then I read the little intro and literally opened my mouth in amazement.

 

If it wasn't for the ludicrous price(!), this could make netbooks a hell of a lot more interesting.

 

I bet in 5 years we'll all have 6 of these drives (well, 256Gig anyway) rolling around a draw somewhere cos we're too busy using our 1TB ones.

 

It'd be cheaper to carry about a 256GB SSD!

 

Sweet. I'm all for people pushing the boundaries. It may be overpriced and unnecessary, but why not?

Although it would almost certainly have been better holding off and making it USB3.0!

 

GOOD GOD MAN

 

As the technology grows, i cant help but think why we would need that much portable storage. Even in business.

Its getting mad!

 

My take on removable storage is that anything above, say, 16 GB, should have e-sata. Sure there are special uses where the transfer speed doesn't matter so much (for example an IT-guy just wants to carry around all the drivers for... everything). I just think that when a normal person buys a large capacity external drive the most likely he'll be moving around large amounts of data.

Or is it just me? 10 MB/s is SLOW in the long run.

 

Burnout21 my friend, Government, Banks and the contractors they use

They have no excuse now to loose a part of a database any more. hahah.

 

Its good to see capacitys going up and up however I doubt I will ever have any need for that much portable storage. I have a 16gb usb key that rarely gets filled and I have a further 8gb sd card in my blackberry if I ever need that bit extra.

 

No, now they can lose the whole database instead.

 

well thats cool and Im sure one day that will be a "normal" thumbdrive to carry around but for that price I would just get a 500gb laptop hdd and throw that into an enclosure, ya I know its not solid state but would cost under $150.00 and you would have more storage so ya just like SSD Im going to have to say its awesome but I will pass until its a more reasonable price compared to HDDs.

 

I'd tend to look at this more of a marketing stunt. I bet releasing this insane usb stick got their name published in all the right (and probably wrong) places. As other members pointed out, almost any other way of getting some more portable storage is going to be faster AND cheaper