Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate G2 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

[Humberto]

Kingston DT Ultimate G2 is high speed second generation USB 3.0 flash drive. It is capable of giving 70 mb/s data write speed and 100 mb/s data read speed on USB 3.0. But if you are using it on USB 2.0 then you can expect around 30 mb/s read and write speed. Designed on high speed USB 3.0 interface, you can simply carry large size files with you and transfer them instantly on common interface. Along with USB 3.0 support, it is backward compatible to work with USB 2.0 devices also. But to take the full benefit of its speed and performance, then using it on USB 3.0 is recommended. The usb drive is a bit bigger compared to other pen drives from Kingston. This reflects the durable body. The model is marked as G2. It is the first second generation USB 3.0 flash drive by Kingston. The pen drive is design for HD files. Today we are expecting to get a change in multimedia where HD is taking its place at fast pace. Soon there will be videos that will be minimum 1GB in size. For a 500MB video also it took easily 10 to 15 mins to copy entirely on standards USB 2.0 interface. And if you had selected around 2GB then it will take much longer time. For a portable storage media if you are going to spend on a 32 or 64GB hard drive, you also expect a good data transfer ratio. It will be dull to sit back to get the transfer completed in hours. I had notice a number of time in Windows when you move a data higher than 5GB it freezes entirely and the process took long time. While in Windows 8, file transfer is much better.

Using Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate G2 is a high speed plus a large storage usb media with USB 3.0 interface. So there is high expectation from this. We are going to perform a small test on USB 2.0 interface. On 3.0 it is expected to get a good performance ratio, but we really want to see how DT Ultimate G2 performance on a slower platform. Because still commonly USB 2.0 is available. It is wiser to purchase an usb device with 3.0 connectivity then 2.0. Because the controller chip used inside the new edition offers more transfer speed. DT Ultimate G2 is designed to deal with data backup, HD video, AutoCAD files, etc. The performance is what matters the most here. DT Ultimate G2 gives a look for some industrial design. It is little heavy and thick also. The upper body is quiet durable. It is shockproof and has tough body. There is nothing special about the design. You can see a few glimpse of the usb in the images below. A small Blue LED indicator lies at end side. When the drive is on or in use the light glows up but when you eject the drive it turns off. A common procedure for safe to remove drive. DT Ultimate comes in two variants. 32GB and 64GB both on USB 3.0 interface.

The body has a cap holder at the end side. You can firmly place it over the back part and even hook a key chain on it. The drive gives a durable design but what matters the most is its performance. If you are buying a storage that offers 32 or 64GB space then it is necessary that read and write speed should be better. As per the specification it offers 30 MB/s read and write speed on USB 2.0 interface. That is not bad enough. I had tested the drive on Windows 8 platform with USB 2.0 connectivity. Because it is obvious that on USB 3.0 you are surely going to get a good output. The system configuration is commonly found. The system on which test is performed has a Gigabyte G41 board with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and 2GB RAM. The internal hard drive is 7200rpm 500GB WD Hard disk. It is a dual boot system with Windows 7 and Windows 8.

[Humberto]

Transfer Speed from Partition to DT Ultimate 32GB on Windows 8:

We copied a 720P video whose size was 1GB. You can see in the image below there are constant 22 mb/s transfer speed. It took just 60 seconds to copy a 1GB file in it. While a regular 2.0 USB takes much more time. I was a satisfied with this decent transfer rate. We had pushed more data into. It this time I am copying around 4.10GB of data directly to the usb drive. The second image below shows the constant transfer rate. There was constant 21.5 mb/s transfer speed. This is not at all bad on an old interface. If on Usb 2.0 we are getting this much speed then we expects 3x higher speed on USB 3.0. It looks exactly 3min 30second to copy all the files. But the speed fluctuates if you use your computer. The harder drive is engaged the more speed is affected.

So in the above test you can have a short idea about the performance. Even if you are trying to copy larger file Kingston DT Ultimate is capable of giving you 20 mb/s approx ratio while the official specification says it can be up to 30mb/s. It depends on the hardware and OS you are using. Windows 8 is quiet better on file copy compare to Windows 7.

Transfer Speed from Partition to DT Ultimate 32GB on Windows 7:

To find the output on Windows 7 we tested the data transfer speed using TeraCopy. TeraCopy is popular file transferring software which offers a precise ratio of transfer speed. It is more reliable compared to default copy utility of Windows. The hardware configuration is same as mentioned above for Windows 8.While moving a single file of 900MB or 9.85GB we are getting a constant 24 mb/s transfer speed through TeraCopy. The speed is constant. It can fluctuate based on the files inside a folder. If all files are of common size then the ratio does not falls.

Crystal Disk Mark Test on Kingston DT Ultimate G2 32GB USB Drive:

Conclusion

As you can see the transfer speed is not at all poor. It is good enough to give you quick transfer speed and move your data from one place to another. Kingston DT Ultimate 32GB is a not only a durable hard drive but its controller is capable of maintaining a better transfer speed. The only problem is that when you move data constantly it gets too hot. Till yet there is no damage faced. We had tested this for hours. The drive gets extremely hot but gets back to the normal temperature within minutes of removal. This can be a negative aspect. Because it comes instantly in mind of end user that getting hot simply means a kind of hardware failure. DT Ultimate 32GB is covered under 5 year warranty. The design is made from industrial grade material that makes it durable. I am sure that putting the sure in ReadyBoost can offer more high speed virtual memory to Windows. There is on internal ready to use utility that most of the usb drive has. Kingston offers uDrive software which has number of features. But it is not available for DT Ultimate 32GB.