INTRODUCTION

   To most people there are only 2 things that really matter when out to get a brand new USB flash drive, price and performance (and both if possible). However there are quite a few people out there who place size above all else (that's mostly what matter for use with media players and car A/V systems) and so most USB flash drives currently in the market will simply not do. Kingston is well aware of the existence of this target group and so they just recently launched their latest DataTraveler Micro USB 2.0 Flash drive which as the name clearly states is one of the smallest USB flash drives in the market today.

   Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world’s independent memory leader. Founded in 1987 with a single product offering, Kingston® now offers more than 2,000 memory products that support nearly every device that uses memory, from computers, servers and printers to MP3 players, digital cameras and mobile phones. In 2009, the company's sales reached $4.1 billion. With global headquarters in Fountain Valley, California, Kingston employs more than 4,000 people worldwide. Regarded as one of the “Best Companies to Work for in America” by Fortune magazine, Kingston’s tenets of respect, loyalty, flexibility and integrity create an exemplary corporate culture. Kingston believes that investing in its people is essential, and each employee is a vital part of Kingston’s success. Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs.

   I always liked small USB flash drives and it's no surprise that i always carry one attached to my keychain. However although extremely convenient tiny USB flash drives were never really fast and that goes double now since there aren't really any USB 3.0 compatible ones currently available in the market (at least not to my knowledge) including the DataTraveler Micro 16GB. The bright side however is that 16GB is not a very large capacity to begin with and so even with USB 2.0 connectivity it shouldn't take very long to fill it with data (anything over 16GB would be overkill for such a small USB 2.0 flash drive). So although it's quite clear that the Kingston DT Micro 16GB is aimed towards people who put size above everything else still as always our job is to also check and see what kind of performance numbers one can expect and that's what we are about to do.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

These clear plastic clamshell packages are pretty much standard so as always you can see the drive from the front surrounded by its capacity, Kingston logo, connectivity and 5 years warranty.

The system requirements, serial number and barcode of the product are listed at the rear.

Once again we see no lanyard inside the package and i still don't know the reason behind this.

THE DATATRAVELER MICRO 16GB

Just as the name suggests the DT micro 16GB is a tiny USB Flash drive.

How tiny? Well i placed it against all 5 USB flash drives i have here now with me and as you can see the difference in size is impressive. Now as you all know lately I’ve been testing only USB 3.0 compatible flash drives so to make this review fair i will also benchmark my old Apogee Pronto 64GB USB 2.0/eSATA drive by Walton Chaintech (with USB 2.0).

Took me some time to find the Kingston logo which as you can see is placed at the top.

The drive capacity is also written at the front side.

Unfortunately once you remove the protective cap you can't place it at the rear.

As always Kingston also imprints the drive model and capacity on the USB connector (the best and easiest way to tell a fake from a genuine Kingston USB Flash Drive).

Well there may not be a lanyard inside the package but the DT Micro comes with holes for one.

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 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 are main test rig running Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 complete with every system update up until May 16th 2012. As always for comparison purposes we also used some of the drives currently available to us such as right now (the ones we no longer have access to are not included in the charts since they were tested using different system configurations).

TEST RESULTS - AIDA 64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

CONLCUSION

   As expected the latest DataTraveler Micro 16GB by Kingston is not what you'd call a fast USB flash drive (even for a USB 2.0 one) but it's certainly not the slowest one either since there are plenty USB 2.0 compatible flash drives in the market with half its recorded read/write speeds (some even slower than that). Certainly if you want one of the fastest units in the market with plenty of capacity then the DT Micro 16GB is obviously not for you but for people who want a very small flash drive for use with their A/V car systems and/or media players then there's no doubt that the DT Micro 16GB is amongst your top (and only) choices.

   The next best thing about the DataTraveler Micro 16GB other than its size is its price which as we speak is set at USD11.74 inside the USA (Amazon/Buy) and at around 10Euros inside the EU. This is a very attractive price tag if you take into consideration that the only USB 2.0 16GB flash drives around that price category are quite larger and slower than the DT Micro 16GB. Bottom line the Kingston DataTraveler Micro 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive may lack read/write performance numbers required for someone to call it fast but it makes up for that with a killer price tag and a tiny size which is why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size
- Performance (Compared To Similar Priced Flash Drives)
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- USB 2.0