- Brand Name: Kingston
- Model: DT310/256GB
- Memory Storage Capacity: 256 GB
- Device Type: USB FLASH DRIVES
- Hardware Platform: Mac
Technical Details
Product Details
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Product Description
Kingston's new DataTraveler® 310 USB Flash drive features 256GB capacity, making it the highest capacity drive available on the market. There's plenty of room for movies, high-resolution photos, applications, graphics and other large files - all on a comp
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
379 of 401 people found the following review helpful
By W. White
I have not purchased this model (Kingston DT 310/ 256 GB USB 2.0 flash drive), but I own about 25 assorted USB flash drives (4GB to 64GB; and 50 more since my first 64 MB model ca. 1998), several purchased from Amazon, and have yet to be burned or scammed. I offer the following as a help to anyone shopping here or elsewhere for a high-capacity flash drive.
*Between 10% & 25% of all flash drives larger than 64GB (and some of the 64s as well) sold on the web (Amazon included) turn out to be counterfeits of smaller size. Counterfeiters are very sophisticated, turning out very professional looking packaging (including supposed tamper-proof 'blister' packages), and modifying the screening/printing on the drives themselves. These percentages are even higher from sources like eBay, and from Hong Kong and China-based vendors. The BBB and your state's Atty. Gen'l. can't help you there, and the seller will simply change names after being kicked off.
*Read product pages for 128GB and 256GB flash drives VERY carefully. Especially if the seller is other than Amazon itself. These sizes are very expensive and uncommon, for technical reasons. In 2008, there was a 3rd-party seller on Amazon offering Kingston 128GB USB 3.0 flash drives many months before Kingston introduced them, and before the final USB 3.0 standard was even agreed to. Anything that looks amiss probably is. Amazon does not and realistically can't check up on every item each of its 30,000 plus 3rd-party sellers offers.
*I would avoid sellers for these hi-cap drives other than Amazon itself. Amazon has a pretty much bullet-proof return policy. Some other long-established sellers with brick-&-mortar origins are probably OK also, but I would check their websites first to ensure they offer that item in their full inventory/catalog. If they don't, it is a big red-flag, and I would call that seller's 800 phone number to be safe, then buy here (if it checks out and the Amazon price is best.
*Amazon is constantly weeding out sellers with names that are very close, even EXACTLY, like those prominent, established retailers. But they pop up at twice the rate Amazon gets them. Be sure you REALLY are dealing with J&R or Adorama, Ritz, or whomever. If you are laying out big bucks for a cutting edge item, make sure they are who they say they are.
*Despite liberal return policies, Amazon & others have more strict rules about electronic items and storage media. Read the T&C fine print before you buy. Any doubts, get them clarified by email, chat, or phone from the vendor.
*These hi-cap drives are in short supply. The demand by professional users is high, and they are NOT simply 2/4/8 smaller chips stacked, but smaller, more difficult to manufacture ones. The demand for flash memory is high in other formats and lately for "hard" drives. BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE prices that seem like a steal. They are: from YOU! Anything more than 5-6% less than average street price is suspicious. There will be more competition later, but right now there are only 3 manufacturers in the WORLD that can make small flash this big (Kingston, SanDisk, and Lexar).
*If you receive an item and it looks like a counterfeit or otherwise not what it is supposed to be, do NOT open the packaging. Open media/electronics may not be accepted on return.
*My 64GB SanDisk drive has my full OS (OS X.6.5), a suite of repair/diagnostic utilities, web/email apps, and a few more critical apps, so that I can boot, repair my main drive/files, communicate, and run about 9 GB worth of apps critical to me. My other flash drives contain a variety of things, and I have never needed (except for above) anything bigger than 32 to transport things and keep things at hand. Everything else goes on one of several portable 2.5" HDDs, from 80--500GB. Consider what you really need. A 256 GB USB 2.0 flash drive is way cool, yes, and bigger than some main system hard drives. But it isn't really useful as an everyday boot-drive, since it is so much slower than the SATA I/II drives in almost all computers (PC & Mac) made in the last 5 years. USB 3.0 with it's multi-GIGAbit throughput will be different, but this drive is 2.0 and few if any 3.0 drives exist as of yet. If you want something small to clone or back-up another drive, consider a 2.5" USB portable SATA HDD: they are just as fast or faster (bus limited), and pretty small (though harder to lose or put through the wash than flash is). The only must-have application I can think of is for an IT pro who goes from machine to machine and needs to have a complete, bootable system at hand.
*In most cases, 2 to 4 64 GB flash drives with be cheaper than a 256 (or 128), and in everyday use just as good/useful/handy. It is nicer to have all that capacity in one package, but 4 drives together are only about 60x20x35mm: VERY small & portable. It is not a huge concession or inconvenience, is it? Besides, especially larger sizes, like the bleeding edge of anything, are prone to problems and failure than older, more well refined designs. If 1 of your 4 64's dies, you still have the other three. Same thing with loss. I have lost 5 USB drives, from 4-16GB capacity, but I always had a disk image or other backup (or 2, or 3). Much harder to do with something as big as 256GB!
Above all, consider what you really are going to use your drive for, what the alternatives are, and be very, VERY careful of WHO you buy from. Check their feedback carefully, verify who they are and what the item is, and check with Amazon. If that sounds like too much work for a $500+ purchase of an item known to be widely counterfeited, then roll the dice, but don't be so surprised when you get ripped-off.
'W'
p.s.: If you see 512 GB models listed, beware. To my knowledge, Kingston, SanDisk, and Lexar do not yet sell these to the public. There is a specialized, secure 512 gig flash drive specially made for the US government, but for now the largest USB flash is 256, though you can get a 512 GB solid state drive for both laptops and desktops, for about $1200.
*Between 10% & 25% of all flash drives larger than 64GB (and some of the 64s as well) sold on the web (Amazon included) turn out to be counterfeits of smaller size. Counterfeiters are very sophisticated, turning out very professional looking packaging (including supposed tamper-proof 'blister' packages), and modifying the screening/printing on the drives themselves. These percentages are even higher from sources like eBay, and from Hong Kong and China-based vendors. The BBB and your state's Atty. Gen'l. can't help you there, and the seller will simply change names after being kicked off.
*Read product pages for 128GB and 256GB flash drives VERY carefully. Especially if the seller is other than Amazon itself. These sizes are very expensive and uncommon, for technical reasons. In 2008, there was a 3rd-party seller on Amazon offering Kingston 128GB USB 3.0 flash drives many months before Kingston introduced them, and before the final USB 3.0 standard was even agreed to. Anything that looks amiss probably is. Amazon does not and realistically can't check up on every item each of its 30,000 plus 3rd-party sellers offers.
*I would avoid sellers for these hi-cap drives other than Amazon itself. Amazon has a pretty much bullet-proof return policy. Some other long-established sellers with brick-&-mortar origins are probably OK also, but I would check their websites first to ensure they offer that item in their full inventory/catalog. If they don't, it is a big red-flag, and I would call that seller's 800 phone number to be safe, then buy here (if it checks out and the Amazon price is best.
*Amazon is constantly weeding out sellers with names that are very close, even EXACTLY, like those prominent, established retailers. But they pop up at twice the rate Amazon gets them. Be sure you REALLY are dealing with J&R or Adorama, Ritz, or whomever. If you are laying out big bucks for a cutting edge item, make sure they are who they say they are.
*Despite liberal return policies, Amazon & others have more strict rules about electronic items and storage media. Read the T&C fine print before you buy. Any doubts, get them clarified by email, chat, or phone from the vendor.
*These hi-cap drives are in short supply. The demand by professional users is high, and they are NOT simply 2/4/8 smaller chips stacked, but smaller, more difficult to manufacture ones. The demand for flash memory is high in other formats and lately for "hard" drives. BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE prices that seem like a steal. They are: from YOU! Anything more than 5-6% less than average street price is suspicious. There will be more competition later, but right now there are only 3 manufacturers in the WORLD that can make small flash this big (Kingston, SanDisk, and Lexar).
*If you receive an item and it looks like a counterfeit or otherwise not what it is supposed to be, do NOT open the packaging. Open media/electronics may not be accepted on return.
*My 64GB SanDisk drive has my full OS (OS X.6.5), a suite of repair/diagnostic utilities, web/email apps, and a few more critical apps, so that I can boot, repair my main drive/files, communicate, and run about 9 GB worth of apps critical to me. My other flash drives contain a variety of things, and I have never needed (except for above) anything bigger than 32 to transport things and keep things at hand. Everything else goes on one of several portable 2.5" HDDs, from 80--500GB. Consider what you really need. A 256 GB USB 2.0 flash drive is way cool, yes, and bigger than some main system hard drives. But it isn't really useful as an everyday boot-drive, since it is so much slower than the SATA I/II drives in almost all computers (PC & Mac) made in the last 5 years. USB 3.0 with it's multi-GIGAbit throughput will be different, but this drive is 2.0 and few if any 3.0 drives exist as of yet. If you want something small to clone or back-up another drive, consider a 2.5" USB portable SATA HDD: they are just as fast or faster (bus limited), and pretty small (though harder to lose or put through the wash than flash is). The only must-have application I can think of is for an IT pro who goes from machine to machine and needs to have a complete, bootable system at hand.
*In most cases, 2 to 4 64 GB flash drives with be cheaper than a 256 (or 128), and in everyday use just as good/useful/handy. It is nicer to have all that capacity in one package, but 4 drives together are only about 60x20x35mm: VERY small & portable. It is not a huge concession or inconvenience, is it? Besides, especially larger sizes, like the bleeding edge of anything, are prone to problems and failure than older, more well refined designs. If 1 of your 4 64's dies, you still have the other three. Same thing with loss. I have lost 5 USB drives, from 4-16GB capacity, but I always had a disk image or other backup (or 2, or 3). Much harder to do with something as big as 256GB!
Above all, consider what you really are going to use your drive for, what the alternatives are, and be very, VERY careful of WHO you buy from. Check their feedback carefully, verify who they are and what the item is, and check with Amazon. If that sounds like too much work for a $500+ purchase of an item known to be widely counterfeited, then roll the dice, but don't be so surprised when you get ripped-off.
'W'
p.s.: If you see 512 GB models listed, beware. To my knowledge, Kingston, SanDisk, and Lexar do not yet sell these to the public. There is a specialized, secure 512 gig flash drive specially made for the US government, but for now the largest USB flash is 256, though you can get a 512 GB solid state drive for both laptops and desktops, for about $1200.
81 of 91 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I ordered this item. I immediately had problems copying photographs--it would copy the folder but not the file. After a couple of attempts the drive does not work at all. I was sold expensive junk. I'm almost certain it's fake as there is no serial number. It was sold to me through amazon by "Fantastic Deal."
97 of 112 people found the following review helpful
By T. Sarkar
Amazon Verified Purchase
When you get your drive open the cap and if there is a serial number then it is is real by KINGSTON otherwise it is a counterfeit. The basic difference between the two models are that with the Kingston one you can have NTFS format which is in VISTA, 7, and so on. Whereas with the counterfeits you can only obtain FAT format. The result, if you use it on the recent computers it will start working and then stop in the middle. Beware what you are getiing!
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Published 4 months ago by Big Bend Slick
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How am I supposed to rate a product that was fraudulent??
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by Kingston Digital, Inc. It was a knock-off and a bad one at that. Read more
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