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Introduction: Small, portable, large capacity, and low priced flash drives are the hot ticket right now. Kingston Technology is going to punch that ticket with a line of flash drives aptly named DataTraveler. Kingston offers 12 versions of the DataTraveler, from consumer versions to the enterprise versions. David from Kingston was nice enough to send over two of the twelve different versions of the DataTraveler that they offer. The first is the DataTraveler Reader, which combines a USB flash drive with a memory card reader, and come in three capacities of 1 GB, 2 GB, and 4 GB. The second is the DataTraveler ReadyFlash which is enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost, which is a feature of Windows Vista. This model comes in both 1 GB and 2 GB versions. DataTraveler Reader Specifications:
A Closer Look:
Each flash drive comes packaged in a small blister pack with all four sides heat sealed. UGH!! Even so, this blister pack is fairly easy to open by just cutting up one side of the package and reaching inside to rip out the product.
I'm going to kick off the review with the DataTraveler Reader. This model is the 2 GB version. This little multipurpose device measures in at 29.5mm x 67.6mm x 11.3mm, and has a built-in card reader for SD, SDHC, MMC, MMCplus, miniSD*, microSD*, RS-MMC*, MMCmobile*, MMCmicro*. The little stars indicate a special adapter is needed for those cards to work in the DataTraveler Reader, and those adapters usually come with the media cards. The main body of the DataTraveler Reader is black with Kingston written on one side and DataTraveler Reader 2 GB silk screened on the other. To use the card reader feature, the back half of the DataTraveler Reader lifts open (it is hinged near the USB connection,) and then the slot for the media card is visible. Simply slide the media into the slot, close the lid, and insert the DataTraveler Reader into a free USB port on the computer. A green LED flashes to the beat of the data flow.
I was curious about how the DataTraveler Reader worked with a card in the reader. Would it combine the information together into one drive? Or would it disable the 2GB portion of the DataTraveler Reader and work from the installed media card only? When used by itself, it shows up as a single 2GB drive in Windows, and to my surprise when a media card is inserted, two separate drives show up in Windows. Now, that is a nice option to have when you need to transfer data from the media card to the flash drive. Next up is the DataTraveler ReadyFlash, which is enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost. So for us non-Vista users: what is ReadyBoost? The answer is up next. Getting Started with Windows ReadyBoost ™
So now that we have the question answered, let's go over the actual flash drive. This particular model is the 1GB version with a silver case, and only measures a mere 67.7mm x 20.8mm x 9.0mm in size. A blue LED flashes to let you know that the data is flowing. The sides have ridges on them so the chip doesn't break off in the French Onion dip - err, wrong chip - I mean to better help grasp the flash drive when removing it from the USB port. << Back to VH FrontPage | Installation & Testing >>
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