INTRODUCTION

   Accidents happen to all of us especially when we least expect them and so it's always a good idea to store all our sensitive data inside rugged storage media devices that can offer a considerably higher level of protection compared to regular everyday ones. Unfortunately as we speak manufacturers have seem to focus most of their resources for the design of rugged PHDs (Portable Hard Drives) and not so much in the design of rugged USB flash drives. As a matter of fact the last and perhaps best quality rugged USB flash drive I’ve ever used was designed and manufactured by Corsair roughly 5 years ago and let me tell you that it was no coincidence that they named it the Survivor GT (the casing was made by alloy used in aircraft). Cost however always plays a huge role when designing a USB flash drive and so most manufacturers seem to favor rubber coated casings that offer both shock and water resistance at a fraction of the price. The DataTraveler R3.0 G2 is the latest USB Flash Drive by Kingston that features such a casing and with us today we have the highest capacity 64GB model.

   Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world’s largest independent manufacturer of memory products. Kingston designs, manufactures and distributes memory products for desktops, laptops, servers, printers, and Flash memory products for PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players. Through its global network of subsidiaries and affiliates, Kingston has manufacturing facilities in California, Taiwan, China and sales representatives in the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand, India, Taiwan, China, and Latin America.

   Leaving out the rugged rubber casing which is obviously the most important feature (and its main selling point) of the DataTraveler R3.0 G2 its design is also something quite unique and although it's really not as tiny as some other USB flash drives (normal and rugged) it's also quite smaller compared to some other models manufactured even by Kingston themselves. In terms of performance the read and write speeds of the DT R3.0 G2 seems to be less than stellar (always according to the specs sheet) but judging by some of their previous models our friends over at Kingston are usually very "conservative" when reporting the performance of their drives so that's primarily what we need to see in this review.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE DATATRAVELER R3.0 G2

The all-time classic clamshell package allows you to take a look at the DT R3.0 G2 to check both its appearance and size.

You can see the OS compatibility list along with the main product features at the rear.

Only the 56mm long, 22mm wide and 9.2mm thick DataTraveler R3.0 G2 is placed in the package.

As usual we placed the flash drive in our hands next to several others we have here to showcase its size.

The model name, drive capacity and activity LED are placed on the top of the drive while at the bottom we just see the company name.

You can mount the protective cap at the rear of the drive when in use so you don't have to worry about misplacing it.

The serial number, model name and country of manufacture are as always engraved at the top of the USB plug and ensure that what you have is a genuine product by Kingston.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Since flash drives are basically plain storage media devices just like solid state drives and hard disk drives we are using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record the achieved performance numbers. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read / Write speeds), AIDA 64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear Read / Random Read speeds), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB-1000MB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts.

   All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 complete with every update until May 16th 2014. As always for comparison purposes in the charts you will also find many other flash drivers which have been tested using the same exact test bench as the one in this review (we really can't keep every flash drive we get forever and also even if we could testing them all again and again would simply not be possible).

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

CONCLUSION

   Our tests made it quite clear that the latest DataTraveler R3.0 G2 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive may not be the fastest of its kind but still it actually did very well, it's small and on top of that it also features a rugged shock and water resistant casing. I have to admit that i was a bit disappointed when i tore the clamshell package open only to find out that Kingston doesn't bundle a lanyard with the DT R3.0 G2 but that's pretty much the last thing on my list when choosing a USB flash drive so i expect the same to apply for most of you. Overall we have nothing bad to say about the latest member of the DataTraveler family although i truly hope that Kingston eventually launches an rugged USB flash drive capable of taking on anything we can think of throwing at it (something like the Survivor GT would be great).

   Rugged USB Flash Drives are always quite more expensive compared to regular ones and the same thing stands for the latest DataTraveler R3.0 G2 64GB since it currently retails for USD71.74 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 34Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). Now although i consider the price inside the EU to be on the spot (i can even call it low) the same is not the case for the USA but i expect it to drop considerably quite soon with the increase in availability. That being said however price is an issue that we just can't ignore and although we did like its performance, design, size and the shock and water resistant rugged casing still we can't award it with anything other than our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Design
- Rugged Rubber Exterior
- Size
- Performance
- Price (EU)

CONS

- Lanyard Not Included
- Current Price Tag (USA)