Kingston DataTraveler II Plus 512MB flash drive Review

One of the toys my work gave me when I started here 2.5 years ago was a 512MB thumb drive (also called a "flash drive") from Kingston called a DataTraveler II Plus. It has been excellent.

What it is

The DataTraveler II Plus is a small thumb drive measuring a bit more than 2.5 inches long. It weighs only an ounce or so. When I received it, its 512MB capacity was the state of the art for thumb drives, although I now see them with 8 GB capacity and expect that 16 GB thumb drives will be coming soon. However, to put my 512MB Kingston drive into perspective, the first PC I bought in 1992 had a 245MB hard drive. The tiny Kingston DataTraveler II stores more than twice what my hard drive did.

The DataTraveler II Plus is a USB2 device, meaning that it can transfer data at a theoretical rate of 480 megabits per second. The practical data transfer rate is something less than that, but it's still very quick when it comes to storage.

The Kingston DataTraveler II Plus 512MB drive probably cost around $50 when it was bought nearly three years ago. Today, it's probably $10 or less.

Using it

The DataTraveler II Plus was recognized by my various computers within seconds and ready to store data. Its 512MB capacity allows it to hold close to what a standard CD can hold, so it's particularly good at storing data in CD-sized bites.

This Kingston thumb drive has ridges on the sides that make it easy to hold when sliding it in and out of a USB port, and a clearly visible light on top glows when the unit is plugged in. This light blinks when data is being transferred, which tells me that I shouldn't mess with it when the light is blinking.

It has worked absolutely flawlessly and never skipped a beat in 2.5 years. In fact, I left it in the pocket of my shirt and it went through the washing machine a few months ago. Other than being a little cleaner, it still works perfectly. That's my idea of a rugged device.

Summary

Thumb (or "flash") drives are one of the greatest and most consumer-friendly advances of the computer era. This Kingston DataTraveler II Plus is the class act of thumb drives and I heartily recommend it. When it comes to handling data, it doesn't get any cleaner than this.