Customer Reviews

KINGSTON DT100 4GB FLASH DRIVE 4GB DATA TRAVELER U

5 star:		(282)
4 star:		(105)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(25)
1 star:		(40)

 

 

This Kingston DT100/8GB Data Traveler 100 8 GB Drive attempts to achieve some of the features of the Sandisk Cruzer and comes pretty close. The several Kingston usb drives I own, such as the Kingston 8GB DataTraveler USB flash drive have done well for me so far. 8 GB capacity is very useful for large file backups or USB storage and transfer. Overall this is a good product. There are a few caveats though.

This is definitely an improvement over the standard design Kingston uses for the basic Data Traveler. Transfer speeds are better than the basic drive as well, but slower than the top end devices.

In order to enable encryption, there are a few ways but the best may be to use another tool to encrypt the drive after re-formatting it. This way you can test the drive as well as use the encryption you prefer.

The main real competition is from the SanDisk 8 GB Cruzer Micro which also has a retractable USB connector. The body is slightly smaller too, but it is more expensive though. In fact Kingston does compete well on price, which is probably the biggest draw to this drive.

Pros:
+ Kingston brand is perhaps under-rated, almost as good as Sandisk
+ Retractable USB head is convenient - No caps!!!
+ Nice capacity of 8 GB has you future proofed as smaller USB drives start to disappear
+ Durable body and NAND memory stands up to a lot of abuse
+ Compatible with old and new Mac and PC Operating Systems (XP, Vista, OS X)
+ Very light case
+ Rear bar to connect a lanyard or keychain
+ USB 2.0 connection is backwards compatible for older computers
+ Very quickly mounts and stops
+ Less scum-ware and needless apps than some other drives
+ Easy to format and enable encryption to protect your data
+ Enhanced performance is slightly better than the basic USB drive product

Cons:
- Lanyard or extender accessories not included
- Doesn't have the good looks of some drives like the Sandisk Cruzer Micro
- Still somewhat slow speed in copying large files, limited by USB transfer rate
- Drive is still larger than it has to be

Conclusion

If you must have the retractable head, give this Kingston a try. If you need the smallest drive available, go with the Sandisk Cruzer Micro.

Enjoy!

This is a nicely made flash drive with plenty of room for lots of big files. And, it is a good value for the money compared to other 16 GB flash drives. Also, I like the retractable USB connector - it slides in and out easily via a little tab on the side. And, once extracted, a little indent clicks in so that the connector will not be forced into the drive when the drive is inserted into a USB port.

On the negative side, it doesn't have an LED indicating read/write access. This is a minor issue to me, but thought it deserved mention. Another con, however, might be a bit more of an issue for some people. This flash drive is a bit slow compared to two others I have. I ran some simple benchmarks, copying files to this drive as well as two others: a 2 GB "no name" flash drive (drive "A" in the results below) I got for free at a computer store as a promo about a year ago, and a Lexar 256 MB drive (drive "B" below) that is a least two years old. I copied two sets of files as detailed below & timed the results with a stop watch. No other folders / files were on the drives when I copied the files. I conducted the tests twice on each drive - the times given are an average. (I did not conduct any read tests, just these write tests).

File set "1": 2 folders, 1 containing 192 files / 20 MB, the other 72 files / 8.63 MB
File set "2": 1 folder, containing 23 sub-folders w/ 495 files / 31.7 MB

And, the test results:

Drive "A" (No Name, 2 GB)
File set "1": 18 sec.
File set "2": 27 sec.

Drive "B" (Lexar, 256 MB)
File set "1": 26 sec.
File set "2": 50 sec.

This Kingston 16 GB drive
File set "1": 30 sec.
File set "2": 75 sec.

As the results of this admittedly fairly unscientific test show, this drive was the slowest of the bunch - almost twice as slow as the 2 GB drive for file set "1", and over twice as slow as the 256 MB drive on file set"2".

So, if speed is an issue for you, you may want to look elsewhere (and perhaps spend more money as a result). But, since I needed space over speed, and I wanted to spend as little as possible, I still gave this flash drive 4 stars.

I bought this drive because it was on sale from Circuit City and was very reasonably priced for the storage size (4GB). It is my first thumb drive. It is extremely compact and very very light. The build quality seems decent, but not extraordinary. The thumb slider works well, and it is nice not to have to worry about losing a cap for the USB drive.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is not the fastest drive in the world. It took a good while to transfer 2GB of files onto the drive. While this is not an issue for my purposes, you might want to keep this in mind if you are intending to use the drive to transfer large amounts of data back and forth. For me, I just want a back up of many files and be able to pull them off the drive when I need to and the drive works very well for that.

The price storage ratio really can't be beat - 4GB - which would have cost a king's ransom before, is now rather affordable with this drive.

In operation, the drive was very easy to use. Just plug it in and it works. Drive packaging says Vista compatible, and it comes from Kingston which makes a generally good product.

If you just need a reasonably priced drive to store files and be very light so that you don't notice it, then this is the drive for you.

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As an update to this review, I've now used the drive on several different computers and it has worked flawlessly on each. It is also much much faster than it was the first time I used it. This leads me to believe that the problem was with the network from which I was copying files and had nothing to do with this drive. Thus, I would probably increase my review to 4 1/2 stars, with a 5 stars to be given if it had a metal casing. The plastic casings on all of these drives seems a little flimsy. Otherwise, an excellent drive.

I like Kingston products. They are general of high quality. This 8GB Data Traveler 100 is no exception. It provides solid performance and seems well built. Please note, though, that this drive is not compatible with Windows Vista's ReadyBoost feature -- it says so on the packaging. This means it does not meet the read/write speed requirements of ReadyBoost. But in everyday file copying, it seems pretty fast.

The drive comes formatted in FAT32. If you share this across different OSes -- including Windows 98 or earlier, Mac OS, Linux, etc. -- you might want to leave it at FAT32. If you use Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista exclusively, you may want to convert it to the NTFS format for better performance, as well as for the ability to store files bigger than 2GB. (FAT32 cannot store files bigger than 2GB.)

To convert the drive safely (without losing any existing information already stored on it), follow these steps:

1. Open My Computer and find the drive letter assigned to the USB drive. You'll find the drive with the generic volume name "KINGSTON".

2. Go to Start -> Run, then type "cmd" (without quotes) to open the DOS window.

3. At the DOS prompt, type "convert F: /fs:ntfs" (again, without quotes) -- here I assume your Kingston drive is the F drive -- to convert the flash drive safely, without losing any information. This should take less than a minute.

Note: NTFS does not make your drive faster per se, but provides better behind-the-scenes file management and its biggest benefit is allowing >2GB files.

With all due respect, Gadgester deducted 2-stars for the wrong reason. Ready Boost will only recognize flash-drives up to 4GB, so you wouldn't buy this 8GB drive for Ready Boost anyway. Save your money and buy a 4GB if you plan on using it for Ready Boost. If you're looking for a flash-drive that is fast, reliable and has the ability to hold a lot of info, this is a great drive! Highly recommended....

I washed this little item and freaked out because I had just transfered all my family photos over because I was afraid of my computer crashing. It had sat in the little space between the door and the washer for two washes. I dried it out (for 2 days) and tried it. It didn't even loose one picture.

Before I bought this, I owned several of the older Kingston Flash Drives with the white top. When I saw this one with the slider bar and no top to worry with, I had to have it. Works great and my data transfers very quickly. The slider is a little stiff, however, the flash drive is still new and hopefully it will loosen up a bit. All in all a well made unit. Highly recommend this one. It beats the SanDisk because there is not USELESS U3 software and this flash drive loads very quickly!

I like Kingston products. They are general of high quality. This 8GB Data Traveler 100 is no exception. It provides solid performance and seems well built. Please note, though, that this drive is not compatible with Windows Vista's ReadyBoost feature -- it says so on the packaging. This means it does not meet the read/write speed requirements of ReadyBoost. But in everyday file copying, it seems pretty fast.

The drive comes formatted in FAT32. If you share this across different OSes -- including Windows 98 or earlier, Mac OS, Linux, etc. -- you might want to leave it at FAT32. If you use Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista exclusively, you may want to convert it to the NTFS format for better performance, as well as for the ability to store files bigger than 2GB. (FAT32 cannot store files bigger than 2GB.)

To convert the drive safely (without losing any existing information already stored on it), follow these steps:

1. Open My Computer and find the drive letter assigned to the USB drive. You'll find the drive with the generic volume name "KINGSTON".

2. Go to Start -> Run, then type "cmd" (without quotes) to open the DOS window.

3. At the DOS prompt, type "convert F: /fs:ntfs" (again, without quotes) -- here I assume your Kingston drive is the F drive -- to convert the flash drive safely, without losing any information. This should take less than a minute.

Note: NTFS does not make your drive faster per se, but provides better behind-the-scenes file management and its biggest benefit is allowing >2GB files.

I bought this device to transfer digital pictures made in the field and stored on my laptop computer to our desktop computer for processing and storage. This product performs this task very well. The transfer speed is what I have come to expect from a flash memory device. There have been reports that these devices may be slower than thumb drives with smaller capacities, but if so, the difference is not detectable.

The small physical size sometimes causes it to be difficult to find in the camera bag, but that is a minor complaint. There is a LED to confirm that data is being transferred, which some list as a desirable feature.

All in all, this device works very well to transfer raw and jpg pictures between computers with Windows XP operating systems. I gave it five stars because it satisfies my needs and to date, I find no specific faults to complain about.

This is a great flash drive for $25. It's a reasonable size & doesn't need a cover because the port is retractable. It runs fast off a USB 2.0 port. There is no annoying preloaded software like some drives have. It works fine for me with both Vista and XP. I'd recommend this for anyone needing a 4gb flash drive.