Kingston 256GB Thumb Drive

By Nick Mokey Published October 19, 2009

We never thought a humble thumb drive would be worthy of a second look – or a First Look, for that matter – but Kingston has proven us wrong. The company’s DataTraveler 300 USB flash drive recently become the world’s highest capacity thumb drive by offering a stunning 256GB of storage.

You read right: 256GB. The same capacity your laptop hard drive probably had in 2005. Or 2008, for that matter. And with write speeds of 20 MB/s and read speeds of 10 MB/s, it’s nothing short of a solid-state hard drive on a stick.

Kingston 256GB Thumb Drive

Of course, at 2.78 inches long, 0.67 inches wide, and 0.87 deep, it’s a bit chunkier than your usual tab-sized thumb drive, but the capless design does allow the USB connector to retract inside when not in use to bring it down a notch in size. And it includes Kingston’s Password Traveler security software to protect all 256GB of whatever you’ve decided to store: 51,000 images, 54 DVDs or 365 CDs, and Kingston likes to break it down.

Recommended Videos

The company imagines netbook users snapping up DataTravelers to extend the capacity of their storage-strapped machines, but with a price tag that translates to $924 USD – about twice the price of most netbooks – we’re a little dubious. They’re on sale immediately, but must be built to order, and are currently only selling in the UK. Find out more at Kingston.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

As Digital Trends’ Editor in Chief, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team covering every gadget under the sun, along with…

Computing

When you sign up for two years of Surfshark you’ll get 10GB of roaming data for free!

Surfshark displayed on multiple devices including a smartphone, tablet, and laptop screen.

Investing in a VPN for your Wi-Fi network is one of the best ways to mask your IP address from those looking to gain control of your personal data, device logins, and other sensitive info. Fortunately, there’s a new VPN-masking service born every day, but not all of these services offer are worth your hard-earned cash. Instead, you should focus on vetted and reliable platforms like Surfshark.

As luck would have it, Surfshark is even offering a promo for new customers: For a limited time, when you sign up for two years of Surfshark One or Surfshark One+, you’ll get 10GB of Saily eSIM roaming data for free. We tested Surfshark not long ago, and reviewer Alan Truly said: “Surfshark is a fast streaming VPN that let me connect an unlimited number of devices, making it a great choice to protect privacy and unblock worldwide streaming for the whole family.” We've also reviewed Surfshark's anti-virus protection suite.

Computing

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth proves, once again, that 8GB GPUs are on their way out

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth running on the Steam Deck.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is headed to PC in a few short weeks, and ahead of the release, Square Enix has released the PC requirements for the game. There are a couple of interesting specs, but one stands out in particular. Even some of the best graphics cards, particularly those packing 8GB of VRAM, might struggle to run the game.

You can see the full system requirements below. At the bottom of the list for each of the configurations, there's a note about VRAM capacity. For 1080p and 1440p, the requirements call for a GPU with at least 12GB of video memory when used with a 4K monitor, while at proper 4K, the requirements call for a GPU with 16GB of memory.

Computing

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle proves Nvidia wrong about 8GB GPUs

Indiana jones buried in the sand.

Nvidia was wrong, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is proof of that. Despite being a game that's sponsored by Nvidia due to its use of full ray tracing -- which is said to arrive on December 9 -- multiple of Nvidia's best graphics cards struggle to maintain a playable frame rate in the game, and that largely comes down to VRAM.

Computer Base tested a swath of GPUs in the game across resolutions with the highest graphics preset, and one consistent trend emerged. Any GPUs packing less than 12GB of VRAM couldn't even maintain 30 frames per second (fps) in the game at its highest graphics settings. That led to some wild comparisons as you can see in the chart below. The Intel Arc A770, for example, which is a budget-focused 1080p graphics card, beats the RTX 3080, which was the 4K champion when it launched. Why? The A770 has 16GB of VRAM, while the RTX 3080 has 10GB.