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Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ 32 GB
by Checuba1
As a computer technician, I had quite a few critical points in what I wanted from a flash drive. I need robustness, a good deal of storage space, ease of use, security, speed of transfer and the ability to transfer more than just ordinary files and folders. I am pleased to say the Kingston Data Traveler DT Locker+ covers all these ... points.
The flash drive comes securely packaged in a blister pack, containing the instructions (which you need to tear down the perforated sides to access) a tiny key ring with very thin nylon cord (don't think it would be very hard wearing!) and the flash drive itself.
The flash drive is very neat looking and the main USB drive has a, nice feel, rubber coating, which no doubt gives it protection from knocks and scrapes and liquid spills. The USB flash drive is then attached to a mat black steel, fold over/wrap round case, that is attached with two tiny hex screws. These screws can be loosened or tightened if need be. The steel case is nicely embossed with the Kingston Logo. I would add that because the key ring supplied is so twee, I decided to hunt for something far more substantial and stronger and opted for an old unused Asus neck cord, that came with a wifi dongle.
This flash drive is truly plug n' play and setting it up was easy. First, I plugged it into one of the front USB 2 sockets on the front of my PC. The drive was instantly recognized by Windows Vista 64 bit. The software automatically installs in about 20 seconds (contained within the drive). I should add at this point, that some of the storage is taken up by the software, which is about 100mb out of 32gb. After the software is installed, a box appears with choices such as transferring folders, videos, music or pictures, or, you can browse the files/folders that are on there. You will also notice in your task bar tray, that a new icon will have appeared. Left clicking it once, makes six options appear: DT Locker+ Settings, Browse DT Locker+, Format DT Locker+, an Online Support link,
an About DT Locker+ icon and finally a Shutdown DT Locker+ icon. I must stress, it is important to use the shutdown feature, to ensure that your drive is not damaged in any way, when you remove it!
The first thing you'll want to do with the flash drive, is to secure it with a password and put some details as to who should be contacted, if the drive is lost. This proved really easy. Just click the DT Locker+ Settings icon and you enter a browser, that invites you to enter your password twice and leave a hint, to remember it by! It also displays a page that allows you to enter a name (yourself perhaps) your company details and a details box for a contact telephone number or email perhaps. The flash drive can also be set to one of nine languages, including English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, as well as a number of Oriental languages.
Now to the nitty gritty... How good is it at what it does? I have to say I am impressed. I owned an old Sandisk Cruzer and I was lucky to get 400KB/sec transfer speed out of it. The Kingston Data Traveler Locker+, by contrast, transfers at an average rate of 4.11MB/sec, over 10 times faster. I was able to transfer many different types of files as well as folders, including .exe files and .bat files .zip files, word and text files. I transferred a folder containing all my utility files. This contained 3.02GB of data. The total transfer time was 12 minutes 17 seconds, which makes the average transfer speed 4.11MB/sec. I don't doubt, that if the data being transferred had been simple jpegs, the speed would have been far quicker. I must stress that 4.11MB is an "average" rate. The lowest rate I saw was 1.3MB at the very beginning and the highest was 7.80MB two thirds through the transfer. It ended at 4.8MB/sec. I also randomly tested the software that I had transferred and all of it worked.
Are there any downsides? Well yes, if you are expecting to use every kilobyte of space. When you transfer data to the flash drive the result will be that the amount of data stored has increased somewhat from its original state. The 3.02GB I transferred from my PC had become 3.09GB on the flash drive. That's a 70MB difference. So on the Data Traveler 32GB flash drive, you can expect to lose 742MB of space plus its own software space of 100MB, that's 842MB, leaving you 31.16GB of storage space. Something to bare in mind!
I would say that this flash drive is good value for money and certainly has impressive specs. Robustness?? Ask me that in a year from now, if it hasn't failed by then!! But looking at it, I would say it should hold up to my knocks and spillages far better than my old SanDisk Cruzer did, which is now consigned to the rubbish bin!
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Play.com 8GB Flash Drive
by xisorosix
~~Product Description, Current Price & Additional Information~~
Play.com / 8GB / USB Flash Drive / Ready Boost Enabled
The Play.com Flash Drive is a fast and easy way to transfer data between computers in style. The Play.com Flash Drive from Play.com makes it easy to quickly save and transport your important data. Users can ... transfer documents, pictures, movie clips and music to other computers with a USB port.
Currently priced at £6.95 with free delivery from Play.com. It can also be purchased in twin packs for £11.99 where you get two 8GB usb sticks.
~~My Thoughts~~
I own several memory sticks and can't even remember when I first got this 8GB one from Play.com. The play.com drives come in blue with a hook and a detachable cap. Writing is at a minimal with only Play.com and the memory space on the drive written. The whole drive is no bigger than my thumb and is really lightweight and about 1cm thick at the chunkiest point. I have some smaller usb sticks in 250mb, and 1gb, but I wanted a relatively inexpensive one that was big enough for sharing data for when I was out and about and ended up purchasing this flash drive.
My play.com stick is unfortunately very scuffed since I decided to hang it with my other keys on a giant keyring. (I took the cap off and have completely misplaced it as well!) The stick is predominantly blue with grey/silver on the side, and it's the sides that have definitely seen better days. Even though my keyring has many bits and pieces, I tend to (out of habit) pick the USB stick up when requiring it, and thus the hook for the keyring has to bear the tug from all the other keys and bits&bobs... despite this it's doing great with only the paint showing wear. And even though I lug it around without any protection in whatever bag I'm carrying, it's worked perfectly fine.
It reads and writes pretty quickly without any lag with a read speed of up to 15MB/second and a write speed of up to 6MB/second. Every time I've transferred data to/from the drive there has been no errors or hassle. I've used this on Windows XP and Mac OS without a problem: the drive shows up automatically. I've had some documents just hanging around there for a long while in case I ever need them (they aren't very important by the way... ;) ) and these files have not been corrupted once. Play.com offer a two years warranty which does offer some comfort as well...though I have a feeling I'm close or passed that...
It's really easy to use - after plugging it in, there is a light inside that flashes green when the drive is being recognised. It gets detected pretty quickly and you can cut/copy/paste with no problems from then on. When you want to eject it, the light flashes green again, after which you pull the drive out.
A great memory stick for everyday use - I would recommend it!
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