Kingston DataTraveler Mini 3.0 (16GB) Review – Great Performance In A Small Package

Kingston, the storage giant, met up with us at the Consumer Electronic Show earlier this year. We were introduced to their entire product lineup, as well as their new products that will be launched later this year. It was at this convention where we received a Kingston DataTraveler Mini 3.0 16GB USB 3.0 Drive to test out. Let’s see how the DataTraveler Mini 3.0 performs!

FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS

The overall look and feel of the DataTraveler Mini 3.0 is exceptional. It was hard to put into words how light this USB drive actually is. To put it in perspective, we placed the DataTraveler Mini 3.0 on a ordinary kitchen scale, which demonstrated that this drive only weighs 0.10 ounces. It truly is unbelievable how light this drive feels, but whether that makes it prone to being lost is another story.

Kingston’s DataTraveler Mini 3.0 is available in red (16GB), cyan (32GB), and grey (64GB), and can be purchased for as low as $13.99. The DataTraveler Mini also comes with Kingston’s five year warranty.

As we have already given away, the DataTraveler Mini features USB 3.0 technology that provides us with increased performance and speed when copying over our files. Additionally, the DataTraveler Mini 3.0 is backwards compatible to USB 2.0. This means that if your USB port on your computer is not blue in colour, then you can still use the drive. You will just receive that annoying notification from Windows letting you know that the drive can perform faster in a USB 3.0 port. If your computer is not equipped with the latest USB technology, then we encourage you to have a look at our report of the HighPoint 4-Port HBA. This PCIe expansion card easily allows you to add four additional USB ports to your system, as well as the addition of USB 3.0 technology.

The 16GB version of the DataTraveler Mini 3.0 has been noted to achieve read speeds of 70MB/s and write speeds of 10MB/s. The larger capacities, 32 and 64GB, have also bee noted to have same read speeds, but with a 5MB/s increase in write speeds.