Kingston ships 256GB DataTraveler 310 USB flash drive to affluent Yanks
No matter how you slice it, having 256GB on your keychain is pretty rad. For those living in various regions of the world not named America, they've had access to the DataTraveler 300 for just under a year. Thankfully, the Kingston finally realized that Yanks love capaciousness as well, and the DataTraveler 310 is the solution that very sect has been longing for. Hailed as the first 256GB flash drive to ship in the States, the DT 310 is capable of holding up to 54 DVDs or 51,000 JPEGs of your undercover lover, and it'll function just fine with Windows, Linux and OS X-based systems. We're told that it'll sport data transfer rates of 25MB/sec (read) and 12MB/sec (write), but chances are you'll never get the opportunity to put those claims to the test. You know, given that astronomical $1,108 MSRP.




























Rad Indeed, however I would be sorry for the one that misplaced it. all that data would be gone.
@Drago: For $1,108 it should come with a bodyguard to carry it for you!
@One Love for that price the bodyguard should care you too!
@One Love
and the bodyguard should be allowed be allowed to look after it at his home for safe keeping
@Drago
your worried about the data??
its a 1.1k flash drive price that would bother the rest of us
@Drago That's what I thought. I wouldn't want to lose my entire iTunes, iPhoto and Movies in one. Plus I don't think I would trust $1100 on my keychain I think I would be more upset to lose that then my data.
@manofchao5 Yes data for me is more valuable that the drive itself.
@Drago
"...would be sorry for the one that misplaced it."
If it wasn't backed up to a HDD, then they really didnt consider it important enough. But whats the point here? No USB 3, no eSATA. At this stage in the game, those should be given.
@Drago
With those Read/Write speeds there is no point in this, wait for the USB 3.0 version at least.
@excelsium
its not USB that is limiting speeds here.
Oh the future is bright.
@whereiswaldo7 And expensive
now that's a sick drive for a sick price
@Drago I paid over 2000 dollars for a 23 Gb 5 1/4 SCSI drive less than ten years ago. Seven years before that my father paid 900 dollars for a 60 megabyte filecard for my Amiga - so to me this doesn't seem THAT expensive.
@ShadowMaker SdR
something that hangs off your key chain, bouncing around, and possibly being damaged? sorry, but flash drives are suppose to be disposable and inexpensive.
Let's keep it real here.... for $23 more bucks you could get this...
Mitsubishi WD-60737 60-Inch 1080p 120Hz Home Theater DLP HDTV
A FREAK'N 60" Inch 1080p man....
those are some pretty big jpegs...
@raider007 - ha same thought...gigapixel jpegs?
@raider007
After formatting the drive, that's about 100MB per jpeg. A lot bigger than most RAW files even....I guess they are using Hubble to take those pictures.
@raider007
Strangest downranking I've seen on engadget for a while.
@Raylon Each pic at 129MB, crikey!
@raider007
yeah, seriously. That number jumped out at me *immediately* when i read it. I'm surprised a techy engadget editor didn't notice that.
-Taylor
Function just fine with Linux? Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't these likely use the patentastic ExFAT/FAT64 file system? Sure, you could reformat them with something else, but then compatibility with windows boxes becomes an issue.
@LucasHenderson Format the thunb drive on NTFS, load NTFS 3G on Linux and youre good to go.
@Drago
I know this to be an option, and with most modern distros, there's no need to load NTFS 3G or anything, as it is built in by default. However, unless I'm wrong, one reason exFAT was developed, was that NTFS wasn't particularly SSD friendly, as it is more write intensive.
Why...
@Eal because they can
Would make more sense with USB 3.0.
Carry on boot drive...
Jack
@jackleboul read/writes are to low to give usb 3.0 a point in this device.
@(Unverified)
my mistake - thought it was SSD based.
Seems very pointless for 1'000 dollars..
@jackleboul
SSD based?
Do you even know what SSD stands for? Or do you just throw around buzzwords and hope they make sense?
@Vdek
I do know the basic difference between USB flash drive and SSD drives.
Mostly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_drive
but if you have any information which could be useful do please share.
Interesting to note is that (OWC) macsales made a new SSD (superfast) which could be bus-powered (using a casing) costs 779 USD for 200GB but it has 260 / 270 read/write speed vs. this crappy stuff at 25/12 for 1000 USD.
Seems cool, but for a tenth of the price you could get a 500gb 2.5" SATA drive with enclosure. Might look a little weird hanging off your key chain, but the extra $900 in your pocket would sure make up for the lack of rad-ness.
256GB full of porn in a pocket USB key. someone had to go there
I'll wait till it's $100, and has a touch screen~
@joelaf yes because a touchscreen is a selling point for a flashdrive...
@joelaf
Umm, who'd want that small of a touchscreen. But if your going to wait for that, you might as well pull up a chair, it's going to be awhile.
give it a year. it'll go down to around a more reasonable $500...
I lose my 2GB flash sticks all the time. I think I'd perform seppuku if I lost this one.
god, for that money i'd chain this thing to my wrist.
That number of jpegs doesn't seem right. I use an 8 gig sd card for my 5 MP camera, and I get 2000 jpegs on it. Maybe I'm missing something.
@Dank Dillweed Yes you are missing the point that raider007 already posted that.
Wake me up whem you find a 1 TB pen drive for U$ 30.
@Billy Gun Welcome to the world of tomorrow!!!
@Billy Gun We'll see that by 2012 or early 2013 at the latest.
Holy crap those are some big JPEG's.
How come's the one released last year wasn't available in the US?
256GB SSDs are cheaper, even high performance ones. Granted they're not as small or portable as this but they offer WAAY higher performance. This seems ridiculously high.
sorry to say that, but this thing has FAIL written all over it:
- it costs more than a ssd
- it writes with 12mb, which is not even half usb2 speed
- its ugly as hell
@fokka To fill 256GB @ 12MB/s .... 6hours?! at optimal speed, and how likely is 12MB/s to be maintained?!
WTF? $1,108 MSRP for a thumb drive? Kingston must be losing it.