Kingston whips out new USB 3.0 flash drive called DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0

By Shane McGlaun/Sept. 15, 2010 5:43 am EST

There are a number of USB 3.0 external storage products on the market today. These drives are generally larger external HDDs though that are larger than most of us will want to take with us on the road. Kingston has offered up a new USB 3.0 flash drive called the Ultimate 3.0.

The Ultimate 3.0 is the first USB 3.0 flash drive from Kingston and it can be had in three different capacities. There are 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions available and the flash drive is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports as well.

The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 has data transfer speeds as high as 80MB/s read and 60MB/s write. The flash drive ships with a "Y" cable that is needed for the drive to work in a USB 3.0 port due to power requirements. Kingston says in testing that the drive was able to write a 3.9GB movie file in 1 minute and 13 seconds. The 16GB version sells for $89, the 32GB is $138, and the 64GB is $270.