Thursday 17 December 2015

Kingston Data Traveler G4 USB 3.0

Now this review was quite a quick one, lets be fair here. With a usb drive, sometimes waiting for things to be copied over like Windows installers can take time and after a recent purchase of a 64GB usb 3.0 drive for £15 (this was for my smart TV to help record and actually teach my farther that pausing live tv is as common as a deal in morrisons tempting to purchase), I felt it was needed and since i've used Kingston before and was impressed by the USB 3.0 speeds on the other drive, I hoped that it would be able to compete, which sadly i was a bit mistaken, but i'll get into that later.
There was a video recorded but reviewing a usb drive isn't really that popular so i'll put it off for now.

But they are nice to look at so if you want one, they are quite good value.


The Packaging and stick itself

Well with most USB drives, the packaging is thin but clear for the most part, and Kingston is no exception, with its famous statue face (I actually saw something similar in outrun 2006 C2C, but different colour) and a clear font to show the Size and Model as well as the Speed along with the Drive itself. taking up the width of the packaging. 

the Front of the drive packaging


The back however, now that is quite unclear and full of text it puts alot of people off reading it, sure its important to have this documentation on there but it seems too filled, there is info like Warranty, Social Media and Operating system support which is a plus. Also barcodes and various translations are there too :). 

The back of it with much writing

Now one thing with the inside (when you have to use scissors or teeth to tear it open, is that there was MORE small print,  of course since a USB drive is simple and common, no manual was included but its not not not not that hard to use a usb drive to copy things to and from the thing. But a platic holder for the stick is nicely presented. 

So much writing

So much more writing



But as we get to the stick, with a lovely white coast, embedded Kingston logos on the back, a blue USB port, covered with the white cap and a yellow big hook, it was a really well crafted drive from its outside, the cap is quite stiff which is good for safety in one way but stressful in another way when using it it often, but wear and tear over time will fix that. 


A nice design

The bottom of it with a imprinted kingston logo

The standard USB Connector

Th bottom of the usb connector

The testing. 


Now this is where i was going to learn a truth of some speed. Since using CrystalDiskMark is a very good idea with testing devices, I installed it once again since i didn't when i used the Toshiba Canvio to backup. The drive was picked up in windows within seconds and I could access it in a similar fashion, but then I ran the tests and i was in for a suprise. The speeds were different than what I would expect. 

The speeds for the drive in a usb 3.0 Port
I was a bit holy um..... The wriste speeds were just poor, especially with the 4k read and write, i mean 0.003 MB/s is WORSE than a Toshiba TransMemory USB 2.0 and that was a 2 MB/s write speed. The Read speeds however were pretty impressive, like more than what i would of guessed


Then it was time to just do a test of how Rufus will perform with it, since I had decided that this will be use many a time (before this review) that i would be copying Windows to it quite a lot so i can get friends and customer's laptops and devices installed with windows. But after how long it took in the USB 3.0 Port, that changed my mind. 37 Minutes and HOLY fuck that is slower than actaully INSTALLING windows to a device FROM a USB Drive.

The 2.;6GB file was actually the quickest part of it

This was near the end. but these small files are a terrible problem for it


So with that in mind...

omracer's Rating: 4/10

The good points:

  • The value is good
  • The read speeds is pretty impressive
  • The design is nice and easy to attach to a keyring

The bad points: 

  • THOSE WRITE SPEEDS ARE ABYSMAL
  • It can burn young children due to the heat causes from a copy such as windows isos or a film.

Well that sums up a quick review. More reviews in 2016 to appear