Kingston’s “world’s largest” flash drive comes with a rather large price tag

Kingston Digital is claiming the “world’s largest” title with the launch of its latest DataTraveler USB-based flash drive. That is because the new model provides storage capacities of up to 2TB, depending on the unit. It’s sold as the DataTraveler Ultimate GT (short for generation terabyte) and connects via a USB 3.0 port (or what’s now called USB 3.1 Gen1) for fast data transfers.

Here are the specs:

“We are always striving to create new and better storage solutions to meet our customers’ needs especially in an ever-increasing digital world,” Kingston Flash business manager Jean Wong said in a statement. “With the release of the DataTraveler Ultimate GT, users can push the boundaries of their mobile storage needs and ensure that they have more than enough space to store their video, photos and files in a small form factor.”

According to Kingston Digital, the 2TB model can store up to 768,000 8MP images (JPGs), 5,623 minutes of 720p video recording at 30 frames per second, 166 HD movies in the MKV format, 531,344 MP3 audio files, or 1,792 compressed MP4 movies. Needless to say, 2TB can hold quite a lot, and is larger than the default storage options in many pre-built PCs.

Given the DataTraveler Ultimate GT is simply a USB flash drive, there is not much to say in the features department. Its form factor is rectangular, sporting a durable zinc alloy die-cast metal casing to beef up the drive’s shock resistance. And because it’s smaller than an external hard drive of the same capacity, terabytes of data can easily be stored in the user’s pocket.

However, cramming all that data into the user’s pocket is extremely pricey. For the 2TB model, Kingston is asking for $1,625, which is a 28 percent reduction of its original $2,273 price tag. The 1TB unit is rather expensive too despite its 28 percent cut in price, costing a hefty $942.50.

That said, what customers are purchasing is the convenience of a reduced size. Samsung’s T3 external SSD offers 2TB of storage and connects via USB 3.0 Type-C, but only costs $790 (the 1TB model costs $350). Even more, it provides read and write speeds of up to 450MB per second. However, it’s not exactly pocket-sized, measuring 2.95 by 2.28 by 0.41 inches.

Kingston Digital’s DataTraveler Ultimate GT flash drives are available now through the company and its partner retailers.