Is that a whopping 256GB USB flash drive in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? The huge flash drive is in Kingston Technology's pocket as they are set to launch the highest capacity USB thumb drive available on the market this week, with their DataTraveler 300 device. Whether the demand for such a device exists remains to be seen.The flash drive includes password protection functionality - through their Password Traveler software - which can protect of up to 90% of its capacity, and it is apparently enhanced for use with Windows Vista's ReadyBoost feature. Kingston state that the 256GB of storage space is equivalent to that of 10 Blu-ray discs, 54 DVDs, or 365 CDs - "that's one album for every day of the year, and it demonstrates how far flash technology has developed," says Kirsty Miller, consumer product marketing manager for Kingston Technology Europe.
If you want to fill it up and transfer 152,384 of your 5 megapixel photos to the device then the transfer speeds of it offer you 10 MB/second write speeds or 20 MB/second read speeds through USB 2.0, although USB 3.0 would seem to make more sense when handling data of this size. It is currently only available in Europe, the Far East, the Middle East and Africa and will cost about £565.67 (excluding VAT) for those in the UK, according to TechRadar, although Kingston say that the device is built to order only. The price includes a five year warranty and 24/7 support.
"The Kingston DataTraveler 300 is ideal for netbook users who want to extend the limited capacity of their machines," Kingston claim, presuming that people will spend a lot more on a store device than they did on their actual netbook. "It can also be used by business consumers who work with large databases, or even designers who need to transfer large graphic files from one place to another."
umm.... 256000MB / 10MB / 60 secs / 60 mins = 7.1 HOURS
a 6x blueray burner can write at 27MB/sec, almost 3 times faster to use a spinning disc and a laser.
iow its kind of slow. ;-)
In case you have to move what? Uncompressed video?
Give it a couple of years and when they develop the terabyte and 1.5 terabyte you maybe able to pick em up for a pony.
I have 160GB of just mp3's. If I count videos (xvod and h264) I can fill this thing up right away. And I doubt I' m the only one.
It's nice to have a small and quick way to copy loads of data that a USB stick can give you. Sure it costs alot now, but it'll drop in time.
It's nice to have a small and quick way to copy loads of data that a USB stick can give you. Sure it costs alot now, but it'll drop in time.
Yeah. I've got about 100 gigs of music, and well over a terabyte of uncompressed video on my homeserver. Not to mention full images and backups of 3 pc's.
The cool thing about it is the size, though. 256 gigs in the palm of your hand. You know that big, rack mount server with 16 drive bays and it's own cooling system that you use to host your media? Well in 5-10 years all 24 terebytes of that data will fit into a box no bigger than my homeserver. I love the minaturization of tech, w00t!!!
It's nice to have a small and quick way to copy loads of data that a USB stick can give you. Sure it costs alot now, but it'll drop in time.
it's not that quick at 10MBps write it'll take you wee while to fill it
Now you can think, "Wow, so many USB keys on one device!"
For me, the first one I ever bought was 128mb with a voice recorder. I lined up for them on a black friday just to get them for cheap.
**You always run out of storage**
even though it's not portable... who really needs THAT MUCH (256GB) for portable storage? .. i figure 32GB should be 'enough' for transferring most stuff on a USB memory stick thing.
One brand of 256gb SSD for example is £439 ex VAT on overclockers.
Miniaturisation and the USB interface components could easily account for the extra on top of that.
But it's going to be A LOT faster than this USB Key....
256Gb in a small package is neat, but it's slow and quite expensive.
Why would you need that?
Or you can set the volume to be read-only after you copy over things from your PC.
As dead monkey suggested, there are many reasons for read-only switches. Many of them are the same reasons why they had read only tabs on VHS tapes and floppy discs... to prevent accidental erasure, overwriting, etc. In addition to the prevention of your stick being infected by viruses from PCs you have no control over.
same and it should add usb3 support by that time.
what does usb3 do when the internal transfer rate is only 10/20?
Internal rate is only that because it's a usb2 device. It can't go faster anyways.
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
A USB 3 device will give you speeds like a normal internal drive would.
usb3 is a highway, if your car cant speed, highway cant help you...
Quite true, how many secret can you put onto 256Gb?
lol that would be hard to swallow...
Nice choice of words. XD
I guess a lot people just want to ride a scooter on a 8 lane freeway. hooray!!
Well, I have a 320GB portable HDD and a 64GB thumbdrive and they both serve different purposes. You can't compare the two as the thumbdrive is not only more resistant to shock and other external factors, it is also A LOT smaller and thereby more portable.
The manufacturer of those drives? That's rather funny, because it was Kingston.
Made me laugh out loud.
No, they better improve reliablibity before I put my data on drives 250 times bigger, not to mention the price, because if a 1GB drive fails it's like "Oh well...", but not with those expensive ones.
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