Category: 
Kingston Technology First to Market with 128GB USB Flash Drive
Large Capacity, Password Protection… and questions I would like to ask…
Kingston announced the Data Traveler 200. Let’s see what is behind the announcement.
1. My first concern is about the price.
DT200/128GB DataTraveler 200 128GB Black - $ 546.00
Will you dare paying a price of full-scale laptop for a pen drive? I will not. But let’s assume that I am crazy geek and I want to have this extra memory. What will I get besides these 128GB of space?
2. Here comes my second concern – the security. What can be your worst nightmare when you carry all your data with you? Right, you are scared to death to lose this device. And your fear is not because you paid so much for the piece of memory, but because you cannot afford that your files are gone. Even worse! The cold sweat trickles down between your shoulder blades when you imagine that your information falls in the dirty hands of your competitor.
What does Kingston offer?
They say it is “…Safeguarded: includes Password Traveler security software for Windows”. But when I hear “you do not need to worry about it…” I start to be really anxious. What does it mean “password security software”? Since there is no single word about encryption I assume that it is a simple switching of partitions. (Frankly speaking I do not want to spend a fortune for this device and to test it in my lab).
3. My concern #3 is based on the impolite statement. The “capless design to protect the USB connector” was offered by our company with or devices and it was loooong ago. Yes, it’s true that Data Traveler has sliding cover. But please, do not emphasize it as a designing breakthrough… It is just indelicate.
What is the bottom line?
If I need to buy a large thumb drive, I would rather get a one with hardware encryption.
And if I need a carrier for movies and music – I’d rather buy few smaller flash drives than one Data Traveler.
And if for some unpredictable reason I buy Data Traveler I expect it to be equipped with some useful software tools and apps. It could be nice to have TrueCrypt, RoboForm, CodySafe, and more.
