Kingston DataTraveler R500

While USB flash drives are getting faster, sometimes what you really want is simply more capacity. The Kingston DataTraveler R500 ($200 street) may not be the fastest flash drive around, limited as it is to USB 2.0 instead of 3.0, but it is certainly one of the largest, offering a whopping 128GB of storage space. Wrap it all in a rugged, moisture-resistant enclosure, and you've got a storage device that's ready to go just about anywhere.

Design and Features
The DataTraveler R500 is a high-capacity flash drive about the size of a Bic lighter. A two-toned black and orange color scheme makes it highly visible, and a tether point on the back of the drive makes it easy to attach to a key ring or lanyard. Measuring 0.5 by 0.9 by 2.8 inches (HWD), the R500 may crowd out neighboring ports, but it's still fairly slim and weighs only 1 ounce.

The rubber housing provides protection against the hazards of everyday life, from dropping your keys on the floor to leaving your drive in your pocket as it goes through the laundry. The drive also has a slight tapering from front to back, and the back end is narrow enough that the cap can be slipped over the end when the drive is in use.

The drive comes preformatted to FAT32, meaning that it is ready to go out of the box on virtually any system, whether it's a Windows, Mac, or Linux machine. There's also no extraneous software included, so you get nothing but uncluttered storage, without the hassles of setting up a password or dealing with management software.

Offering a hefty 128GB of storage space, the DataTraveler R500 sells for $1.56 per gigabyte. Though it sells for a higher overall price, this is a lower cost per GB than is offered by other high-capacity drives, like the USB 3.0-based Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 (32GB) ($80 street, 4 stars) ($2.35 per GB) or the Corsair Flash Voyager GT ($64.99 direct, 4 stars) ($2.03 per GB).

Performance
Though it couldn't run PCMark 7, the DataTraveler R500 still produced decent read and write speeds, with read speeds of 30 MBps and write speeds of 21 MBps. While these numbers can't match the blazing fast speeds offered by USB 3.0 drives, they still represent tolerable performance from a USB 2.0 drive with so much storage capacity.

The biggest thing that the DataTraveler R500 has going for it is that it's just that?big. 128GB is a lot of storage space, and while that capacious storage might be faster accessed with a USB 3.0 connection, there's still plenty to be said about having that much storage space on hand wherever you go. It also benefits from a rugged rubber housing, so your files and photos will be well protected.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Kingston DataTraveler R500 with several other flash drives side by side.

More flash drive reviews:
??? Corsair Flash Voyager GT (32GB)
??? Corsair Flash Voyager USB 3.0
??? Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 (32GB)
??? Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ (8GB)
??? Victorinox Swiss Army Slim Flight
?? more

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