Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Gen 2 32GB Flash Drive Review
Kingston’s DTU30G2/32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive
Back in Q2 2011 the marketing team over at Kingston Technology announced that the company had begun shipping its first second generation of USB 3.0 enabled DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Flash drives. These drives take advantage of the latest USB 3.0 technology that offers up to ten times the data transfer rates of the current USB 2.0 specification. The original DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Flash was rated by Kingston as having read speeds of up to 80MB/s and a write speeds of up to 60MB/s. This Flash drive was quick, but since it was released in September 2010 speeds of available USB 3.0 host controllers and NAND Flash have improved in terms of performance and pricing. The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Gen 2 improves upon the original performance numbers and the new Gen 2 drive series is now rated as having up to 100MB/s read and 80MB/s write speeds!
| Kingston Part Number | Description | Street Price |
| DTU30G2/16GB | 16GB USB 3.0 Flash drive | $50.36 |
| DTU30G2/32GB | 32GB USB 3.0 Flash drive | $80.74 |
| DTU30G2/64GB | 64GB USB 3.0 Flash drive | $145.30 |
The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities under the part number DTU30G2. If you are shopping for a drive be sure to remember part numbers that begin with DTU30 are the original drives and are slightly slower. Kingston has phased those drives out, but there are likely still some floating around the channel. For this review we were sent the 32GB DTU30G2/32GB model, so that is the drive we will be using for testing.
The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 that we received comes in enclosed in clam shell packaging and needs to be cut from the packaging, which is a bit of a pain. Kingston let us know that they have a wide variety of packaging options available and it is up to their retailer to pick what packaging they want to use. The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 32GB USB 3.0 Flash drive was built with both speed and capacity in mind as Kingston wanted to make this Flash drive series ideal for data backup or fast transferring of large files including music, photos and videos.
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 2.0 (DTU30G2) Features:
- Capacities 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
- Requirements system with USB 3.0 port
- USB 3.0 Data Transfer Speeds up to 100MB/sec. read and 70MB/sec. write
- USB 2.0 Data Transfer Speeds up to 30MB/sec. read and 30MB/sec. write
- Backwards compatible with USB 2.0.
- Dimensions 2.90″ x 0.87″ x 0.63″ (73.70mm x 22.20mm x 16.10mm)
- Operating Temperature 32 to 140F (0 to 60C)
- Storage Temperature -4 to 185F (-20 to 85C)
- Simple just plug into a USB port
- Practical durable casing with a solid lanyard loop
- Guaranteed five-year warranty
Cutting open the retail packaging we found that Kingston included a key chain ring and also that basic instructions were included inside the paper packaging. On the lower right hand corner of the packaging you can see that this drive features a five year warranty and free tech support from Kingston should you need help with anything.
The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G2 has a blue activity LED light in the end of it that glows blue when not in use and flashes while transferring data. The light remains the same color whether it is on a USB 2.0 port or USB 3.0 port. The picture above gives you a good look at the USB 3.0 header on the Flash drive.
The enclosure does have a hole in it for a key chain or lanyard and the cap also snaps onto the end of the drive so you won’t set it someplace and lose it while the drive is in use. Kingston even designed a small gap or slot in the housing so the supplied key ring rope will still work even with the cap in place.
The Kingston DT Ultimate G2 is the same exact size and weight as the original series, so while the drive has gotten faster it has not gotten any larger. Now that we know the basics of this Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Gen 2 Flash drive we
can move on to
benchmarking!
Comments are closed.