Who needs a 256 GB flash drive?
Posted in This Just In... on July 20th, 2009 by gkrakow
This might just be a case of “We did it because we can.”
British scientists at Kingston Technology have just announced a 256 GB flash/thumb drive. That’s giga not mega.
They claim their new DataTraveler 300 USB (1.1/2.0) Flash is the highest capacity big-little drive on the market today.
I’m not going to argue.
For the record, 256 GB of data, allows you to store 10 Blu-ray discs (~25 GB each) or 54 DVD discs (~4.7 GB each), 365 CD discs (~700 MB each) or more than 50,000 or so images!
How many people actually need to carry that much stuff around with them?
The monster drive provides data transfer rates of up to 20MB/sec. read and 10MB/sec. write. It works in Windows, Mac OS or Linux computers with USB ports.
Kingston says that 90% of the drive’s content can be password protected (Windows computers). No administrator rights are required and fast transfer speeds are said to guarantee smooth data flow to the host device.
I’m happy to report that the DataTraveler 300 is backed by Kingston’s legendary (their term – not mine) reliability plus a five-year warranty and 24/7 tech support. I hope so.
Because this 256 GB flash drive will set you back somewhere in the neighborhood of $900-$1,000 from one of Kingston’s online resellers. And, those listed resellers don’t mention prices as of yet.
Don’t expect to see these little babies being heavily discounted at your local Wal-Mart or Costco anytime soon. They’ll be available (in Europe for now) by special order only.