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Kingston Data Traveler R500 Review
Striking orange on black is the first impression I get from this drive, but it's the advertised high speed that lured me to buy it. Announced in mid November, the DTR500 is one of the newer products in the Kingston lineup. Today we will be reviewing the DTR500/16GB. It is also available in 32GB and 64GB models. The drive sports a rugged rubber casing and a 5 year warranty to back up the rugged claim.
Specs from Kingston: (PDF Mirror)
# High Speed — 30MB/sec. read, 20MB/sec. write
# Durable – rubber casing provides increased protection to the drive
# Strong – shock-resistant
# Capacities* — 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
# Dimensions — 2.76" x 0.89" x 0.49" (70mm x 22.68mm x 12.40mm)
# Operating Temperature — 32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C)
# Storage Temperature — -4°F to 185°F (-20°C to 85°C)
# Simple — just plug into a USB port
# Bold Look — black with orange
# Guaranteed — five-year warranty
In the package you will also find a mini lanyard that has a mini keyring attached.
"Slightly wedged" seems to be the design Kingston was shooting for.
This picture is an illusion. It gives the idea that the cap actually fits nicely on the rear of the drive, but unfortunately it does not - the cap slips right off with only a slight nudge. Flash drive caps are notorious for getting lost and this cap is well on it's way to falling into that mystical black hole that all USB flash drive caps end up in.
Over the blue access LED there is a maroon and olive hologram. This is a nice feature that tells me I have a genuine Kingston product. I guess kingston should be flattered they make wonderful products that people want to knock off.
The drive is billed as a rugged drive due to it's "shock proof" rubber coating. It is definitely rubbery and bendy. It has a nice soft tactile feel to it that makes me want to give it a little squeeze every time I take it out of my pocket. My concern with usb drives has always been accidentally crushing the drive by sitting on it rather than dropping it so I personally don't give the ruggedized aspect any validity.
The cap is also extremely plaible.
Unfortunately, due to the R500's odd wedge shape it does not play nicely with neighboring USB ports.
Cross Hardware & Cross Platform Performance
ATTO Disk Benchmark v 2.34 Average Read & Write performance for 64-8192k transfer size in MB/s
| Model | CPU | RAM | Platform | | Avg Write | Avg Read |
| HP 6000 Pro | Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz | 4 GB DDR3 PC3-8500 | Win XP 32 | | 16.8 | 31.9 |
| HP Z400 | Xeon Quad Core W3530 2.80GHz | 12 GB DDR3 PC3-10700 | Win 7 x64 | | 16.5 | 28.0 |
| HP Z400 | Xeon Quad Core W3530 2.80GHz | 8 GB DDR3 PC3-10700 | Win XP x64 | | 16.3 | 31.4 |
| HP DC6700 | Pentium 4 650 3.40GHz | 2 GB DDR2 PC2-5300 | Win XP 32 | | 15.8 | 32.1 |
| Lenovo T61 | Core 2 Duo T7250 2.00GHz | 2 GB DDR2 PC2-5300 | Win 7 x64 | | 12.4 | 31.6 |
| Lenovo W500 | Core 2 Duo T9600 2.80GHz | 4 GB DDR3 PC3-8500 | Win 7 x64 | | 11.6 | 31.6 |
| Overall Averages | 14.9 | 31.1 |
It is interesting to note here that the DTR500 performs better on Windows XP 64-bit than on Windows 7 64-bit.
Lenovo also seems to have some issues with their USB read performance. This is right in line with their poorly performing PCMCIA slots.
Performance wise this device is very fast. Although it consistently surpasses the 30 MB/sec read speed, it never hit the claimed 20 MB/s write speeds. Considering the high variance between the write speeds of the hardware tested here, it is possible that the bottle neck may be on the host machines USB bus.
Conclusion
Pros:
Sweet orange and black design
Very fast
Fun squishy rubbery feel
5 Year warranty
Cons:
Fairly expensive - 16GB @ $48.99, 32GB @ $92.99, 64GB @ $189.99 (Newegg as of 12/02/2010)
Cap does not fit on rear end of drive
Oversized - not friendly to neighboring usb ports
Overall, I would buy this device again for it's excellent speed and slick looks.
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