2009-10-05 - Kingston data Traveler 150 64GB

For the first time we are now beginning to see 64GB drives come in to the realm of the affordable, expensive yes, but not unrealistically so.

The Kingston Data traveler 150 64GB is one such drive. Cheking the major online retailers shows that it can be bought for about 100GBP (170USD), and although this may sound like a lot it is definitely worth considering when you look at the cost of the 32GB model, you can double the capacity for a modest 40% price increase, abnd the fact that they are backed up by a 5 year warranty.

If you have a need for rugged, vibration-proof, silent, small and fast storage and you need more than the 8-16GB that most drives offer then there are relatively few contenders out there. while 32GB drives seem to be appearing from most manufacturers the higher echelons of the 64GB arena are still relatively empty.

Digitally big, and Physically big: As well as being digitally massive the Kingston Data Traveler 150 64GB is also physically quite large. It's still small compard to an external hard disk but if you have limited space around your USB ports then a small USB extension cable is needed as it will often foul on the connectors of other USB peripherals.

Where did i leave my cap? It also suffers from the typical USB drive issu of losing the cap, I do wish manufacturers would use captive caps or at least have a more reassuring click to them. Althoguh retractable connectors go some way to solving the issue they are often quite fragile so I'm glad Kingston has not decided to use on on this device like it does with other SUB drives in its range. Also, given the price I am a little surprised there was no lanyard included in the package...

Performance: Kingston claim speeds of up to 20MB/s read and up to 10MB/s write speed for the Data Traveler 150 64GB, which although not blisteringly fast should be plenty fast enough for normal application, and is definitely fast for a drive of this size. When it came to actually testing the drive I was pleasantly surprised to find the transfer rates exceeded those quoted by Kingston!

Using large 500-700MB media files I was able to keep a sustained 29.9MB/s read and 14.9 MB/s write, which actually makes this one of the faster drives around, and not just in the 64GB catagory. The Kingston Data Traveler 64GB was able to hold its own against many smaller performance model drives.

Verdict: All in the Kingston Data Traveler 150 64GB is a solid, fast drive, but with a few niggles, if it were a smaller capacity I would probably consider another drive over this one, but there are not many 64GB drives on the market so your options are limited, and the shortcomings are no worse than a lot of other drives.