SagAzon: Kingston Digital DataTraveler 101 Generation 2

Kingston Digital DataTraveler 101 Generation 2 - 16 GB Flash Drive DT101G2/16GBZET

Game 64

Kingston Digital DataTraveler 101 Generation 2 - 16 GB Flash Drive DT101G2/16GBZET

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Supports Windows 7, Vista, XP & Mac
urDrive Software-customizable, portable desktop-anywhere.
Sleek capless design no cap to lose
Available in multiple colors by capacity
Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
Capacities - 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB
Convenient - Pocket-sized for easy transportability
Dimensions -2.25 x 0.68 x 0.39 Inches (57.18mm x 17.28mm x 10.00mm)
Handy - Compact swivel design
Preloaded - with urDrive software
Simple - Just plug into a USB port
Speed ? 16GB: 10MB/sec. read and 5MB/sec. write3
Storage Temperature -4Â° - 185Â°F / -20Â° to 85Â°C

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Kingston's DataTraveler101 Generation 2 is a convenient storage companion that lets you take all of your data to your home, office, school and anywhere you travel. It comes with urDrive1, preloaded software that gives you a new and exciting way to look at your data. When you launch the software, the urDrive interface pops up like a desktop for your USB. It features drag-and-drop and double-click capabilities to help organize all your files, photos, videos, music and more. It's easy to use and even includes a built-in Photo Viewer and mp3 player, plus a 2GB online backup account to keep your important files secure online.

List Price: $ 42.00 Price: $ 9.99

Customer Reviews

625 of 638 people found the following review helpful

Much faster than rated - at least for larger files, January 29, 2011

NLee the Engineer (Nashua, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kingston Digital 32 GB USB 2.0 Hi-speed Datatraveler Flash Drive DT101G2/32GBZ, Purple (Personal Computers)

This Kingston DataTraveler DT101 Gen2 32GB USB flash drive has a very nice compact design. It is about the same size as the SanDisk Cruzer Micro (with the USB port retracted). See the size comparison picture I uploaded to Customer Images section. What cannot be seen from the picture is that the Kingston drive is slightly thicker. That makes it impossible to insert two Kingston flash drives into two adjacent USB ports, whereas two Sandisk drives can be stacked one on top of another.

I benchmarked the Kingston DT101 G2 flash drive as soon as I received it. The initial result I got, using the free "Flash Memory Toolkit" program, was not very impressive. It shows that for smaller files of 1-5MB, the write speed is only 5.7 - 6.2MB/s (see the Customer Image section for screenshot). In contrast, the Transcend 16 GB JetFlash 500 was able to achieve higher speed of 6.8MB/s (for 1MB file) to 11.3MB/s (for 5MB file).

For transferring very large files, however, this Kingston drive really shines. I benchmarked its read/write speed using 1GB video files, and was able to achieve up to 11.4MB/s in write, and 20.2MB/s in read. This is over twice as fast as its rated speed, which claims just 5MB/s write and 10MB/s read. In contrast, the Transcend drive only achieved 7.5MB/s in write and 13.4MB/s in read, under the same test conditions.

In summary, the Kingston DT101 G2 flash drive may not be suitable for tasks which require frequent read/write of smaller files, such as using it for daily backup or as a 'ReadyBoost' device. But for transferring large chunk of data, such as storing temporary video files for playback on my WD TV Live Media Player, it performs the job really well. I consider this product a very good value, especially at its present low cost of just .60 per GB.

Some additional notes:
- The good thing about USB flash drive is that: the unit cost ($ /GB) drops by half every year. So I can get this 32GB flash drive for about the same price I paid for a 2GB drive four years ago. The bad thing is that: no matter how large the drive capacity, I always manage to fill it up to the brim in seemingly no time.

- The capacity for this Kingston '32GB' flash drive, as reported by my computer, is 29.7GB. Note that this is actually normal, because 1GB to computer people means 2 to the power of 30, which is about 7.4% greater than 1 billion. So 29.7GB translates to approximately 32,000,000,000 bytes, which means '32GB' according to marketing people.

- This Kingston flash drive came pre-loaded with 'urDrive' software, similar to the infamous 'U3' software for previous generations of Sandisk flash drives. I have no intention to use urDrive, so I renamed the 'Autorun.inf' file (found on the root directory) to 'Autorun._inf'. That way, I don't have to be bothered by it ever again - but it is still available in case I changed my mind.

- The drive is pre-formated in FAT32 file system for maximum compatibility. That means its largest file size is limited to 4GB. If you need to transfer files larger than 4GB, you have to reformat this drive to NTFS. Be warned that doing so wipes out all existing files, including urDrive.

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Comments (41)

293 of 306 people found the following review helpful

Good drive with a bad cover design, March 8, 2011

Teahouse Fox "...and this is my favorite stor... (MD, United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Kingston Digital 8 GB USB 2.0 Hi-speed Datatraveler Flash Drive DT101G2/8GBZ, Red (Personal Computers)

I have a collection of USB thumb drives and use them for a wide range of activities. I transport files, use them as a portable work environment, install portable apps, encrypt them with passwords, transport files from one network to another, use them to boot, ReadyBoost, and run an entire OS - things most consumers will never likely care about.

Because I use them so often, it's hard to get excited over a new USB drive unless it has something new or innovative about the design. I'm not excited about this drive. I had an immediate positive reaction to a USB drive with a similar design concept: a small footprint drive with a swinging metal shield. But where the PNY Micro Swivel Attache perfected the swivel design in a tiny 4GB drive, and the HP v115w Flash Drive did the same in a 16GB model, the Datatraveler made a larger, less elegant cover that can hardly be given that name.

It is a good drive, in that it's an excellent price and performs well. There is an activity light that flashes as the drive is being accessed. I don't use the Kingston app, but instead installed PortableApps on it, which works like a charm. But the cover is about useless, providing little if any protection if you were to place the drive in a briefcase, backpack, pocket or drawer. It's loose and swings freely, never staying in place and offering virtually no protection. If you plug this thing in, and hardly ever remove it, except to plug it right in to another computer, then this is probably not going to trouble you. If you wear your USB on a lanyard, it will also not be too much of an issue, since the lanyard will attach at the cap, and gravity will keep it in place.

The price is excellent, but if you need a more rugged drive that travels well, get one that has a better fitting cover design.

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Comments (10)

102 of 107 people found the following review helpful

Bad Sectors / Bad Product, March 12, 2011

Jeremy Nicklas (Columbus, OH, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kingston Digital 4 GB USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Datatraveler Flash Drive DT101G2/4GBZ (Cyan Blue) (Personal Computers)

I recently got 2 of these flash drives to install operating system iso's on them, to make installing operating systems on other computers quick and easy. The first flash drive I used happily for basic file saving before I copied over the image of the operating system. Once I copied over the operating system and installed the operating system from the flash drive onto a different pc, I got error messages late into the install. So I ran the utility ChkFlsh on it and found some bad sectors. This makes the flash drive useless since you can't fix bad sectors on a removable flash drive. This was bound to happen, since I have seen similar problems before on previous flash drives that were used heavily over time (although I hadn't used this particular flash drive heavily).

Shrugging it off as a fluke. I cracked open the case for the other new flash drive. Copied over the operating system image and installed it on a pc. Again, errors popped up late into the install. Scanned it for bad sectors, which again showed up quickly. Now I am dissatisfied with Kingston for sending 2 flash drives with bad sectors on them. This never showed up in my earlier model flash drives (Kingston DataTraveler I - 4 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive DTI/4GB).

This product is useful if you don't intend on filling the stick up completely with large important data files. Smaller files will most likely never hit the bad sectors. For now I recommend the earlier Kingston models which I have scanned time and time again and rarely find bad sectors.

Edit: Just wanted to mention one other con. The swivel is a con. It causes the flash drive to be too thick to stick into tight USB spaces. This is fine if you have a USB port all by itself, but if you have multiple USB ports side-by-side, then it will block (or make an uncomfortably tight squeeze for) the neighboring USB device.

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