Kingston's 256GB USB Flash Drive is $1,108
A USB flash drive larger than your console's hard disk drive.
Living in the U.S. and in search for a USB flash drive with massive capacity? Kingston is finally shipping its 256GB drive to the United States with data transfer rates of 25MB/sec. read and 12MB/sec. write.
The model known as the DataTraveler 310 replaces the 256GB DataTraveler 300, released in July 2009 to the Asia/Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa regions.
“We saw an opportunity to push the capacity envelope for USB Flash drives in the marketplace. Customer feedback and our research determined that this is a great solution for designers, engineers and architects who have a need to easily store and transport large data files,” said Andrew Ewing, USB business manager, Kingston. “For the enthusiast who wants easy access to their full media library, the DataTraveler 310 can store up to 365 CDs, 54 DVDs or 51,000 images. This device makes an entire collection of data easily portable.”
For those thinking of packing this massive drive with sensitive information, the DataTraveler 310 features Password Traveler software, which allows the user to create and access a password-protected privacy zone. The secure area of the drive can account for up to 90 percent of the drive’s capacity and does not require administrator rights.
If you want one of these, you'd better have $1,108 sitting around.
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Why? Portable USB hard drive with bigger capacity and much faster transfer rates can be bought for 1/5 of the price. Yes it's slightly larger, but for $800.00 in savings I'm OK dealing with 2.5" external enclosure. As a matter of fact I carry a 160GB in my laptop back pack at all times. It came free with a Fujitsu netbook that cost less than the 256GB USB flash drive.
What, this is nearly 10 times slower than a good SSD, but costs 50% more? Thanks, but no thanks...
True, Compulsive1, but the flash drive is more durable (most likely).
I'll get one when they are $50...
It's a start people. The price will fall. One day it will be affordable. As soon as a 500GB flash drive comes out, it will push prices down. A beginning is good. The high end doesn't start within reach. That's why it's the high end. It will push others to go higher and what was once the high end will come down to within reach. I say thank you Kingston for keeping things fresh.
It's a good start. It's called the high end for a reason. Others will push farther and the high end will slowly come within reach. I love technology!
1k!! i will pass..
Why? Portable USB hard drive with bigger capacity and much faster transfer rates can be bought for 1/5 of the price. Yes it's slightly larger, but for $800.00 in savings I'm OK dealing with 2.5" external enclosure. As a matter of fact I carry a 160GB in my laptop back pack at all times. It came free with a Fujitsu netbook that cost less than the 256GB USB flash drive.
but some people aren't, not only that, platter drives, if dropped, most likely are toast, this flash drive is FAR more convenient for many people, especially businessmen on the go. a hard drive is too clunky for them to be risking sensitive date.
i like this design i have a 300GB external and I'm just uncomfortable carrying it around cause it has platters. I never carry it around but this here of course is too expensive.
Get a 256GB Intel SSD and a $20 Adapter.. VWALA
I'll wait for the 1TB version.
Definitely worth it. A must buy for every self-respecting PC enthusiast.
As many said, you can get a 2.5" 256MB SSD for ~700$ + an external e-SATA enclosure for ~25$.
High-end, yes, just like gold-plated gadgets ...
I hope it will drop to $50
The price will drop eventually.
I still have a brochure from 3 years ago which has an internal Blu-ray burner advertised for $1,200. Now I can pick one up for $250-ish (Australian).
Can you imagine writing 200GB of data to this thing at a blazing speed of 12MB/s. That's going over 4 hrs. Are you kidding me? Why not have a eSATA port?
For over $1000 and 256 gigs, why isn't this USB 3.0? It could take you at the minimum 3 hours to read off that and 6 to write to it. As others have already said way cheaper options are available while not being pocketable, still nothing unreasonable.
even writing at max speed at 12MB/s...it'll take 6 hours of non-stop tranferring to fill this up (assuming it's 256000MB, and not 256x1024MB...)
I paid $140 for a 512MB drive 4 years ago. Today, you can buy a one gig drive at a dollar store. In a few years, they'll have a 20TB drive, and thrift stores will be selling Kingston's 256GB for under 5 bucks.
wait, no USB 3.0? what's the point?
I'll bet the government buys a million of them.
1.8" SDD FTW!
To.costly to buy.....:-)
wait, no USB 3.0? what's the point?
If read/write is really 25/12, then I believe the bottleneck is actually the flash memory inside. Moving to USB 3.0 or eSATA would therefore be pointless. I said it and will say it again, just get an SSD with eSATA external enclosure and you will be doing 250/200 MB/s for less money.
This drive has to be based of MLC NAND flash and not SLC NAND flash chips, which is why there's such a slow read/write rate, even most SSD's use MLC flash. However, the controllers and chips that are in SSDs aren't in this flash drive more than likely. One of the reasons SSDs are so fast is the near RAID performance that is designed into the controller chips. However, a flash drive packing this much storage has no room for such bells and whistles. Even the best flash drive tops out at less than the USB 2.0 standard even when using eSATA if I'm not mistaken. Pocket portability and durability sans USB connector itself, on these drives, is not something that flash HHs offer.
If I understood the article correctly the company considers it a convenience for a very specific market niche. Gamers and enthusiasts are not part of the market niche.
If read/write is really 25/12, then I believe the bottleneck is actually the flash memory inside. Moving to USB 3.0 or eSATA would therefore be pointless. I said it and will say it again, just get an SSD with eSATA external enclosure and you will be doing 250/200 MB/s for less money.
USB is max out at 60MB/s aka 480Mb/s but no device will achieve that due to high overhead and legacy.
For that speed? F%#K NO! gimme 60MB/s write and 90MB/s read at least then we'll talk.
for that kind of money you can get one of those nifty pci-e ssd's that are super-duper fast. of several smaller ones.
I would be scared to carry that around in my pocket or to attach it to a key chain.
A friend of mine went to China an bought a 400Gb USB Stick for US$60.