Kingston DataTraveler 101 Gen2 with urDrive 16 GB USB 2.0 (Black)

I bought this because I was looking for something with a larger storage capacity than my other Kingston Data Traveler (4 gb) to carry personal files with me and still have room to transfer larger files from computer to computer. I was sold on the idea of having portable apps built into the flash-drive, however, I was disappointed to find that this would not work out of the box for me without a Microsoft dot net platform. I reformatted the drive to wipe all the pre-installed files off of it and installed free and open source "Portable Apps v1.6.1.0" [...] which solved the problem for me.The metal guard is a nice idea but could have been made better. The keychain loop is small, as others have noted, and if you put a smaller ring on it to attach it to your regular keyring or lanyard-- the guard will not swivel to a complete 180 degree position for plugging into your computer (it's skewed and looks awkward when plugged in this way, and if you have another USB port next to it can impede connection to that port). Besides that, when closed there is plenty of room for pocket fluff to get into the connection if you were to carry it in your pocket as I do. This could have been more carefully designed or omitted completely in lieu of a simple cap, in my personal opinion.That said, the drive itself is great and I really like the large storage capacity for the minimal pricetag. Kingston makes a reliable product and I wouldn't mind having a few of these, honestly. I would certainly buy again.I give it four out of five stars for the pre-installed apps being reliant on Microsoft dot net and the metal guard design. Flaws are easily fixed or lived with, though, so... thumbs up from me. Ultimately, I'm happy with my purchase. :)

My first flash drive (thumb drive) was 1 GB and I thought that was wonderful... the idea that all that capacity could be carried on a little gadget in my pocket.Now this flash drive isn't much bigger than my first and can hold a whopping 16 GB. With that capacity it can be use to transport data when traveling, taking work home from the office, store extra sensitive files for security, and a whole host of other storage ideas; photographs, music, family documents, etc.After hurricane Katrina, I scanned all the important personal papers to this drive; birth certificates, school records, licenses, insurance papers, broker information, house deeds, IRS filings,and passports, and then left one in a safe deposit box to insure that if a catastrophy struck, I could easily reproduce the material. I also told my heirs about the storage drive so they would have easy access to items important for my estate.

I gave the other 16GB DataTraveler 4 stars because the cap comes off and there's no place to store it or clip it when this drive is in use. Well, this one is one piece, and since it reads and writes fast enough for me, it gets 5 stars.As usual, the Kingston drive did NOT let me down. It's become my favorite flash drive. All devices I have that use USB flash drives (car stereo, clock radio, etc.) recognize the Kingston drives. That is not true for two other brands that I have ... and wish I didn't.Some have complained that these drives are too slow. I don't understand that statement at all, and I don't understand how fast a drive has to be other than instantaneous. This one reads and writes quite fast, and I was able to load 200+ "albums" in less than 8 minutes. Photographs took quite a bit longer and my solution was to go get a cup of coffee. The truth is that this drive is as fast as my 60GB Western Digital, and if a jump drive ever gets to 60GB (and they will), and it's a Kingston, I'll buy it.

This is a great thumb drive, with a nice transfer rate, and very affordable for how much space it has.The only gripe I have is that the lanyard hole is on the cover, and it is SO tiny that anything other than thread or dental floss actually obstructs the connector and makes it difficult to close completely. Kinda a silly design. Would've gotten 5 if the lanyard hole were just on the other end of the drive.

I used it to make a system image on a new computer I purchased. The data rate was good and just took a little time to do it. I don't see what the problem is with the metal ring and the quality seems very good. Honestly, what do you really expect for the price, gold plating? It works great for backing up the computer and I can see it working good for storing some files. I definitly recommend it for the price

I store my digital pictures on flash drive. This unit doubled my capacity. I will keep it in my safe deposit box and transfer new pictures to it annually. It'll last a long time. I bought it because it was so highly rated. Only time will tell if it stands the test of time, but it worked just fine.

I've used Kingston flash drives to back up my computer files for for years and am about to order two more. They're dependable and easy to use. This one was a gift for a friend who dodn't know anything about the subject. I felt very comfortable ordering it for her.

I really like this design better than the newer one that has a cap that you will invariably lose. Kingston needs to go back to this design.

On the face of it, the DT101G2 is nothing more than a plastic-looking, plastic-feeling USB flash drive, with a metal cover that swivels to cover the end of the drive but leaves the sides exposed to lint, grit and anything else you might have in your pocket. The Kingston isn't particularly sturdy, and it's the one drive I own that I wouldn't want to carry with keys or change.Using the h2test2 speed test program gave me a write speed to the drive of 4.22 Mb/s - not terrible but a bit slower than I was expecting. The Kingston is by no means the fastest of USB drives I've ever tried but seeing as I only use it to perform the odd back-up now and then, speed isn't too much of a problem for me. Just bear it in mind if you intend using the drive for regularly moving large files.But appearances and speed aside, where the DT101G2 begins to impress is in the software Kingston has included on it - some of which, I admit, you may find pointless, but some of which you may find of use. When you first insert the drive into a Windows 7 machine (I assume XP and Vista will be similar), you get the standard autoplay options popup, asking you what you want to do with the device. Although you can simply open it up to explore the contents, you also get the option to start Kingston's urDrive software, which allows you to do much more with it. Just note here that, for some reason, the software won't run properly if you have an SD card or similar inserted into the card slot on your PC at the same time as you start urDrive.urDrive is a single-window interface, giving you access to programs pre-installed on the drive. These include the Maxthon 3 web browser (a surprisingly good browser that I recommend you at least try), Norton PC Checkup system performance checker, a free 2GB online back-up storage solution and a music player. urDrive also gives you access to a mass of other downloadable applications such as games, music and video utilities, and productivity applications (paid-for and free), which are all available from the urAppZone, which is itself accessible directly from the drive - very handy if you need a program on-the-fly and don't have access to your own PC.urDrive also lets you view and manage the photos, music and videos on your drive, and as you click on each of the media buttons in urDrive it sets up dedicated folders for each. In truth most of this is pretty superfluous and probably not of much interest to the majority of people, but I can see people living out of airports or hotel rooms making use of it - after all, having your own self-personalised browser and dedicated suite of applications wherever you go could be quite a bonus. Just note that the Kingston doesn't come with any password-protection software built into it, so you should be careful not to leave it lying around in a public place - slightly disappointing given its seeming target market.I bought the Kingston simply to back-up the photos on my PC, not realising that it came with urDrive (or, indeed, any other software) installed. Knowing that the software was on it wouldn't have affected my decision to buy it one way or the other as I only need the drive to perform the most basic of tasks, but it's nice to have it there, as long as you don't mind losing some disk space. The only downside is that I would have expected the drive to be a little more robust (physically and security-wise) when it's seemingly aimed at travellers and those on the go.

I cannot add anything more to the existing review. I've been using it for the past several months and I have to say that this USB Drive is perfect, and the build quality is very good. The only problem I have is that the attachment hole is actually very small (as has been noted elsewhere) - but then again that may not be a problem for you. Comparing to some other USB flash drives, transferring data to it is not the fastest there is but reading from it is not a problem - so bear that in mind while ordering (this is not a problem for me though). I'm using it for unattended installation of Windows 7 and data transfer - and this device is perfect for that.Also Windows 7 x32 (or x64 bit) doesn't have any problems with recognising the drive. The OS will simply use the next available drive letter to map this device. Format it first though (you don't want to keep any "junk" that's there anyway) -> as soon as OS will connect and recognise it, right click on the drive and select "Format" from the drop down menu -> chose "quick format" and accept any default other options. After that the device should be ready to use. Anyway, this is a recommended product with acceptable price tag.

I haven't had any need for a USB thumb drive for a few years now but had in my mind that nowadays they were relatively cheap and similar... obviously I recognise that this was quite naive of me however I went ahead and purchased this Kingston DataTraveler.Packaging and build quality are all fine, possibly better than I was expecting for the £7 paid for it however I was in for a bit of a shock when I started to transfer files to it. Formatting the drive went fine but the write speed seemed painfully slow. I have seen some reviews saying that by some miracle you might receive one that runs faster however I can only review the one I received.I looked into write speeds on USB thumb drives a little and decided to see what they were coming up as for this drive. Using a portable program called USBDeview I was getting a write speed varying from around 2.7Mb/s to 5.5Mb/s (Iran the speed test about 4 times).Based on the chart found here: [...].It would be tempting to write a 'THIS IS SO SLOW!!!' review but I am mindful that I ordered this based on its capacity and its price. It has 14.4Gb free space after formatting and for £7 was the cheapest I could find on Amazon.In future, if time/speed is an issue, I now know to spend a little more.

Just recieved mine this morning (this being monday) but i expected to recieve it last friday but meh got here in the end. Ive just had it copying over 4Gbs worth of saved files on my other old USB stick and the write speed of this thing is anything but short of jaw dropping. my Patriot X-mini transfers files at about 3-5Mbp/s on a good day but this Kingston goes way beyond that (to the frontier and back perhaps? certainly seems capable of warp speeds!!) and I had everything copied over in a matter of minutes.The product is and looks very plasticky and possibly very brittle unfortunately. it seems pretty solid but i dont think it would fair too well if you sat on it, it would most definitely snap in half. so make sure you dont keep it in your back pockets. and lastly dont smack it against anything hard otherwise you'l find yourself ordering a new one in no-time.theres only one slight niggle I have with this product is that it doesnt come with a lanyard but for the price I payed for this, i dont really mind as lanyards can be bought very cheaply.

This stick is brilliant and I use it for my car radio as I have now got a solid state car audio system.Very robust and very fast data transfer.I have always rated Kingston equipment and I will never use anything else.Plays my audio MP3 files brilliant on my car audio system.I would not hesitate to buy again.You can actually format these to NTFS if you need any more than a 4gb file on it.Fat32 will only take a max of 4gb in any one file so yes you can get 16gb on it in Fat32 mode but you will have to do it in multiples of 4gb per file/folder. Format to NTFS and you can then put more than a 4gb file/folders onto it.Be careful though if you do format it to NTFS as many devices like TV's and car audio systems will only read fat32.Overall this is a fine memory stick and I have used it for many weeks now without any trouble at all.