Kingston DataTraveler Max 256GB USB-C Flash Drive with USB 3.2 Gen 2 Performance, Black

Great "little" stick drive. It's actually, a few inches long, but it is very fast, installed with no issue, and has a lot of space on it. My wife has a phone with no micro slot and only 128GB of total drive space, so videos and pictures at high resolution fill it quickly. This stick allows you to clear out your phone's photos and vids in a matter of minutes, but still have them for editing and use later.

Your mileage may vary, but initial testing has gone very well in my niche application. I have a 2017 MacBook Pro (i5-7267U/8 GB RAM, four Thunderbolt 3 ports only) running Windows 10, and I am out of drive space, but I need to install some large software to take on the road with me. I was going to buy an external m.2 chassis, but I thought I would give this drive a try, instead, since it is about 1/3rd the price of what it would cost me to buy an external m.2 chassis, m.2 drive, and Thunderbolt 3 cable. It's also a small fraction of the size and weight.The software in question is already running on my 2022 desktop PC (Z690/i5-12600K/32 GB DDR5/Samsung 980PRO m.2 boot drive, Windows 11) from a 10 years old Kingston 240 GB SSDNow V300 SATA SSD that was pulled from my old Dell laptop. I ran CrystalDiskMark on the old drive in the new PC, because the software runs fine at that speed.The Kingston DataTraveler Max 256 GB is giving me about twice the speed in sequential read/write and about half the speed in random read/write. The SATA drive is NTFS, and the USB drive is exFAT, but that probably doesn't matter. As you can see from the CrystalDiskMark screenshot, I am pulling the advertised 1000 MB/s even from this relatively ancient and obsolete MacBook Pro, so it definitely works fine on a Thunderbolt 3 port using Apple's Boot Camp Windows drivers. I did not include a screenshot of the old drive's results, so as not to confuse people.This is probably going to be fine, but I am installing the software right now to see how well it actually runs on the MacBook Pro, running from the USB-C stick. It will take hours to install, since the developer specifies 140 GB of drive space, and my WiFi is only pulling about 100 Mb/s. If the software doesn't run very well, it will likely be more to do with the difference in memory, CPU, and GPU between the two machines, not the drive speed.Although Kingston is not the only brand of memory and storage I trust, I have relied on Kingston products for decades, and this product gives me every reason to extend that trust. The DDR5 RAM in my desktop PC is also Kingston.Update: After 3 weeks on the road, I can say this drive performed flawlessly in my application.

Excellent speed, but the form factor is very limiting. USB-C ports tend to be close together on many devices, and the stick is so wide you can't plug this into a port without unplugging whatever is plugged into its neighbor.

Keeps up with my Samsung and Crucial external SSDs with similar speeds. Really impressed with it and wish I had purchased the larger size. I connect them all via a powered Thunderbolt hub to my laptop.

Pretty decent, just not user friendly with it having a huge face and short type c. If trying to use on phone you’ll probably need to remove case of phone and if on pc with multiple ports it might interfere with other usb ports that are being used.

I got this because my OWC Envoy was faulty. This drive is decent, i may have expected more from it than it was capable of. The speed is decent, but it also slows down for no reason. It doesn't always work, not sure why. Formatted it and it works more consistently now.

My drive definitely gets the advertised speeds on USB 3.2 GEN 2 port. On a 3.2 Gen 1 port, I get about half the advertised speeds. Still very fast for a small flash drive. Also works well on my phone. This flash drive does get fairly hot, but that's to be expected because of it's fast transfer speeds.I bought this product for around $38. At that price, it was only about $8-10 dollars more when compared to other big name brand 256gb USB C flash drives, but you get much faster speeds. At $38 dollars, I think this drive is fantastic, but I don't think I would buy this product again unless it came back around or below $38.Minor complaints:I wish the case was made out of metal rather than plastic. For a drive that's supposed to retail for $63 dollars, you would think it would have a more premium finish. A metal case would also help transfer heat more effectively than plastic.Also, the design of the case could be better. When the USB plug is sheathed, the plug is still exposed on the back. They really should have designed it so the plug is fully covered when sheathed.Lastly, I wish the USB plug was extended slightly so I could use this flash drive with certain phone cases. Most phone cases will not allow you to fully insert this drive. You will either need to remove your the case or buy a new one that has enough room to insert the drive. (I wouldn't really consider this a design flaw or proper complaint but it would be a nice QOL improvement).

Used this flash drive for less than a month to back up photos and music for Apple devices (non-expandable media for the lose). Just the other day it spontaneously disconnected while I was using it and now it's not detectable by any of my devices. And of course, the return window closed YESTERDAY. So I have no recourse but to try to go through Kingston's Warranty service to maybe get some of my money back.Why did I wait a few days before checking the return window? Because I liked this thing. It was really fast and had lots of space, and I thought I'd be able to use it for years. Hoping I can get something back from this, but I'm probably out the $90+ dollars I spent.