Customer Reviews

Kingston DataTraveler 101 Gen 2 16GB USB Drive - Black

5 star:		(224)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I haven't run any speed tests, but this drive seems to write and read as fast as any other usb stick I've used. I'm glad about that, because the reason I bought it was to move 11GB HD video files around and it does that admirably.
Mind you, the first thing I did was to free up space by formatting the drive, thus getting rid of the preinstalled software - I would assume that things would also be slower if I hadn't done that.

To be honest, as long as you can find a way to attach it to wherever you want to (if you want to attach it to anything), there is not really enough reason to not buy one of these. However, it is a real shame to have given this 4 stars to be honest, so I will cover the negative/s first:

- Main problem is really that the attachment hole is very small e.g. for if you want to attach it to keys, clothing etc. It will only take very fine guage string (potentially not very strong). It could do with either being bigger or being supplied with decent string (the kind you get with phone...dangling things!).
- I am still skeptical about the durability of the central swivel part, although it does seem much sturdier than any memory stick of the kind I have had.
- It seemed a little uncertain/slow at reading data at first, but that seems to have long stopped.

The the positives:
- Near the best value memory stick I have bought (for the build, the look, the feel and the capacity)...and I get through a lot of memory sticks.
- It seems (and has so far after a couple of weeks) like it could resist quite alot of rough treatment or a long time of moderate use.
- The materials and the general build are very reasurring and sturdy.
- Good read and write speeds, especially for the size.

I am moving to a new computer soon and wanted to park a copy of My Documents and Favourites out of harm's way. I read the reviews kindly left about this drive by other people, for which many thanks! I noticed the advice about uninstalling UR Drive and /or deleting superfluous software.
I am somewhat nervous of mechanical devices, but it was recognized instantly and became "Ur Drive F". I opened it and wondered what possible harm can happen if I right-click on it. I got "format" among other options. Left-clicking that, I got a stern message that should I proceed I would be deleting a lot of software.
"Really?!" said I, rather pleasantly surprised, and proceeded. Now it appears as KINGSTON DRIVE F, performs immaculately, and when I click "eject" it becomes "a removable disk". Perfect!
If I may be allowed to contribute a slightly frivolous point with a serious intent: like many other contributors before me, I noticed how very TINY this USB Drive is - on my desk it could and would easily disappear without trace caught in some papers, as to what will become of it mixed with a bunch of keys at the bottom of my handbag, I dread to think.
Staring at it with my Art @ Design hat on, I saw that it looks just like a stylish piece of modern jewellry, i.e. a pendant. So I got one of those black silk cords people use for handmade pendants these days, removed one end of the simple clasp, threaded the black silk cord through the little ear (you have to encourage it a bit, but if I can do it, you can do it), replaced the clasp end and TA-DA! Firstly, with that cord on, there is no way it gets lost on my desk. Secondly, it looks very Matrix with a black T-shirt or polo neck. Now I am waiting for the first techie lad who says, "Hey, lady, do you know what that thing is?" In Mid-Wales we look forward to simple joys...

Been thru a fair share of pen drives in the last few years, most seem to last only a year or so before they start falling apart - the last one I had from a different manufacturer ended up wrapped in sellotape to keep it together. This one has a five-year warranty ( not sure about the small print) but it does feel quite sturdy, also quite like the swivel cap as it adds some protection to the usb connectors. Only time will tell if it lasts but it seems to work well on all the OS I have tried (Windows7, XP, Mac and Linux) 16GB should give me loads of space to store everything.
Not so sure about the extra free Windows urDrive sw - just seemed to make it more difficult to disconnect the drive from Windows ( Windows kept complaining that the drive was in use even after I had closed down everything I could see - wont be using the urDrive again - at least its optional)

A small drive. I tried this at least on 10 different PCs, XP, Vista, Win 7. I did not experience any compatibility issue. A very fast one, perhaps the fasted among other half a dozen flash pens I have. I will buy another 32gb version when the price is lower.

The first thing which struck me about this very nice looking flash drive is how tiny it actually is, far smaller than I'd expected, at only about an inch long (or roughly one-third the size of my old 8GB ByteStor drive).

Although advertised as a 16 GB device, once formatted (it comes pre-formatted as FAT32) it provides less than 15 GB of storage. 92MB of this is taken up by the Windows XP "ur drive" software (useless to me, running Windows 9x). Some users have reportedly had difficulty removing this, to reclaim the wasted space; but in Windows ME it deleted without any problem. I didn't even need to use the Uninstall utility which comes with it.

This USB device is not compatible with Windows 98 or 98SE, as it doesn't include a Windows 98 driver file (although it *might* work using one of the "generic" mass storage drivers for Windows 98 available on-line, but I haven't tested this as I'm using Windows ME).

However, it works okay in Windows ME (which has its own built-in mass storage drivers for USB flash storage devices), and in Windows XP. In fact it worked straight from the box in Windows ME; Windows detected it at boot up, and installed a mass storage driver for it.

It's backwards-compatible, in that it will function in a USB 1.1 port (at USB 1.1 speed), as well as in a USB 2.0 port as advertised (where it will work at the faster USB 2.0 speed), though you might not want to use such a large drive in a USB 1.1 port except in an emergency, as USB 1.1 gives very slow data transfer speeds.

In USB 2.0 its access speed is good. At best I was seeing a 21 MB file written to the drive in about 2 seconds, though larger files were slower. A 35 MB file could take up to 10 seconds. The packaging includes notes pointing out that speed will depend partly on what else the computer is doing, and how it's configured. It took me about an hour to transfer 250 files totalling 10 GB onto the device, a speed I was quite happy with, at this price. Read speeds were about twice as fast as write speeds.

You can buy faster devices, but they cost nearly twice as much. And as a home user, I'll only occasionally have to load large amounts of files onto the device, so I think this is a real bargain.

I bought one of these a few weeks ago, and was very happy with it - good read and write speeds - about 20 minutes to fill the whole 16GB. So I ordered another, and it was s l o w. Took over an hour to write 16Gb. I ran the h2test2 speed test, and it confirmed that this was writing at a fraction of the previous device. Amazon were very good and replaced it immediately (and refunded my postage) but the replacement was just as bad - almost identical write speeds to the faulty one. Amazon have taken it back and refunded my money - I now need a memory stick from a reliable source, which is a shame as the first one was brilliant.

So download the speed test and check your devices when they arrive.

excellent value for money. As a new user of this sort of equipment
I have appreciated a little more in the way of instruction in use.

Yep, I like the look of this one. Very neat and small (actually 2.2 inches long and 0.6 inches wide) the strap attachment is via the swivelling cap. Plenty of "welly" in the inside, so I look forward to lengthy use of this 'un. My black one is entirely black incidentally, not just the "body".

Excellent piece of kit. I visit several different client offices each day and use this for my encrypted backup of recently collected data. Transfer of large files is fast. Delivery was quick and well within the anticipated delivery date.