Kingston's New USB-C Memory Stick Is Almost Unbelievably Fast

Kingston makes a lot of storage devices, but today, it announced one of the most intriguing yet. Today Kingston Digital announced the DataTraveler Max, a new USB flash drive capable of some impressive read and write speeds. The DataTraveler Max users USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 to meet those high speeds, and what results is a USB flash drive that's faster than most people probably even need.

Still, we're never going to complain about fast transfer speeds, and Kingston is sharing some nifty ones today, saying that the DataTraveler Max has a top read speed of 1,000MB/s and a top write speed of 900MB/s. That's an obvious benefit of using USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, but the standard is something of a double-edged sword here.

After all, USB-C limits the number of devices this can be used with to newer PCs and laptops that have a USB-C port in the first place. While USB-C ports are obviously becoming more and more common as time goes on (and on some new laptops, that's all we're seeing), the choice of this standard for the DataTraveler Max means that you can't use it with older hardware that offers USB-A ports without some kind of an adapter.

For someone who needs fast flash storage, however, that's probably less of a drawback. Aside from the USB-C design and the top read/write speeds of this drive, there isn't much more notable about it. It comes with a one-handed sliding cap, so you don't have to leave the USB-C connector exposed when not in use, an LED indicator, and a keyring loop – standard stuff for a USB flash drive like this.

Kingston Digital says that the DataTraveler Max will be available in three different capacities: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. At the time of this writing, the DataTraveler Max doesn't appear to be listed on Amazon or Newegg yet, so we're not sure how much it costs, but we're guessing that it might be a fair bit more expensive than your standard flash drive.