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Kingston Unveils $1000 USB Flash Drive
Barence writes "Kingston has unveiled the 'world's first' 256GB flash drive, raising flash drive storage to the kind of capacity you normally associate with laptop hard disks. Kingston claims the drive is 'ideal for netbook users who want to extend the limited capacity of their machines,' although given that the device costs about twice as much as a netbook, buyers could probably get more storage by purchasing two of the cheap ultraportables. The device is made on a build-to-order basis, with a suggested UK retail price of £650.52 including VAT — that's an astonishing $1074.69 at current exchange rates. Not exactly cheap and cheerful."
If I'm spending that kind of cash, I wanna be able to drop it off a building and have it survive - after it's been run over by a tank. Otherwise, there's no point in using it on a regular basis as additional storage for something you're carrying around all the time.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
After removing the tax, applying the excahnge rate and dropping the price a bit, I've worked out that it'll retail for around $6.50 in the US.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Article Summary FAIL.
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What kind of flash netbooks are you buying with that much storage?
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It's the first 256 GB USB flash stick, not the first 256GB flash drive. There are half a dozen 256GB flash-based SSDs out there that attach via SATA. The only thing that makes this even slightly relevant is the form factor.
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Pricewatch has 64GB usb sticks at $150 at cheapest (happens to be a kingston now too):
http://www.pricewatch.com/browse/flash_card_memory/usb_64gb
and that's not even the sweetspot of GB/$$ because the 32GB usb sticks are around $60, much less than half that despite being only half the capacity.
Also, a 2.5" 256 SSD drive that can be put into most notebooks starts at $608:
http://www.pricewatch.com/browse/hard_removable_drives/ssd_256gb
So why would anyone buy a more expensive USB stick to "extend their notebook" when they can do so internal to the notebook, for cheaper, and have all the benefits of a SSD drive?
So, with such a high price tag, the only advantage really is the size and hopefully it is reliable enough. With such a large capacity handheld drive, I hope they offer some kind of online backup method or something. What about security ?? Its likely to get misplaced. Do they offer secure access with this ?
It better come pre-loaded with the cure for cancer.
Now that these things are getting big, who is going to popularize building them with eSATA connectors to get some good speed out of them?
Think how cool a true flash drive in your pocket would be!
Kingston Unveils $1000 USB Flash Drive
This is a little like making a gem-encrusted toilet seat. While undoubtedly a useful interface (I use it almost every day), it is ill-suited to fast, bulk transfers, and I'm anticipating crappy performance despite the high price tag.
I made a bet to someone that by October of 2010 we would see some sort of USB 1TB Flash drive. I think my bet is safe.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
How many GB can I get in a flash stick for 23,148,855,308,184,50?
Or, you can replace the magnetic drive inside with a SSD drive like THIS for much less ($699) and get an external case to carry it one of THESE a total cost 25% less (approx $770).
But that is just me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
buyers could probably get more storage by purchasing two of the cheap ultraportables.
They could definitely get more buying an external drive from Best Buy with 3-4 times the storage at 1/10th the cost.
There is no question here as to how cheap storage is.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I wanna be able to drop it off a building and have it survive - after it's been run over by a tank. Otherwise, there's no point in using it on a regular basis as additional storage for something you're carrying around all the time.
Do you have 256GB worth of data as to how to avoid being run over a tank or something?
It was $65.00 per megabyte. And this, although not ram, would be worth $16,640,000.00
We've received unconfirmed reports that former IBM president Thomas Watson has risen from his grave to estimate the world market for 256gb flash drives at "maybe 5".
At that price it should be firewire / e-sata as well as usb.
Yes, its expensive. Remember when a Gig of RAM was this much?
Guess what, its dirt cheap now.
Give it a year, everyone will have a Terrabyte on their iPhone 10.0's
And for 256GB, the $1000 price tag is roughly in line with current thumb drive pricing. It is slightly higher due to the additional cost of fitting that much memory in a small form factor.
If you need (very) large capacity portable storage, this could be worth it to you.
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I can't wait until these end up on Woot!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
But what...is it good for?
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Not exactly cheap and cheerful. - unlike the dollar
Since I got rid of my 3.5' 1.44MB drive and disks several years ago, cheap USB Flash Drives have become their replacements.
As long as the pendrive is fast and robust enough, I don't care much as size. 1 or 2GB are ok for the use I am giving them.
I have a dedicated and encrypted drive for my work, another with personal data that's in a Ziplock inside my safe, another one in the internal USB port my motherboard has, another one in my DVD player front USB port, another four in those mini hubs behind my pc, etc.
If I need better and faster portable storage with respectable size, I use my 300GB WD Passport Essential that got in a Amazon deal. It has multiple partitions, some encrypted.
It must have fallen off my keychain or something. What do you mean, "No big deal, USB keys are a dime a dozen"?
here...
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The US military has already placed an order for 500,000 of these.
Each one will be used to store just one file: a 500 kilobyte PDF file that contains a soldier's manual for shining shoes.
And of course all military computers have usb locked out anyway, so you couldn't use it in any military sense anyway.
Just another day in the uses for the tax dollar.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Very cool indeed to have that much storage space in the palm of your hand. I like how tech is getting smaller and more powerful but the cost as it is is kinda out of this world but im sure in time as all with all cool new tech the price will drop.
Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB is $120.00 and it's tiny!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Butt, it does give rise to a new meaning of "pocket rocket" and "pocket pool"... And, "Are you happy to see me, or is that a massive data stream in your pocket?" or "I bet your thumb drive is bigger or pack more pow than your tea spout" types of thoughts....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
What they need to be working on is a $2 flash drive.
NAND prices are way up this year, but if USB flash drives are going to be true floppy replacements the manufacturers need to find some way to make the small (less than a gig) sizes cheap and keep them that way.
The device is made on a build-to-order basis, with a suggested UK retail price of £650.52 including VAT â" that's an astonishing $1074.69 at current exchange rates.
I love how people quote "at current exchange rates" when talking about tech gear. I don't know how well it works the other way around, but here in the UK it isn't often that we see true exchange rate parity for either hardware or software. Even when the pound was worth ~1.8 of your dollars it wasn't unusual to see consumer kit priced at closer to 1UKP==1USD, and I'm comparing online prices here (so I'm not making the mistake of comparing US online prices to UK high-street prices). Not that I'm bitter or anything...
... size is. Put simply, for the first time 256 GB can comfortably fit inside a human anus. If you can't see a use for that, then you're not living your life nearly dangerously enough.
Father I need to confess. Contrary to popular belief the significant parts of my life fit in a couple of 16 GB SDHC cards. A bit of video on one and all photos on the other. That's it.
I take the complete works of Edsger Dijkstra need even less storage. If I would be so privileged to be one 10th as meaningful as he was to society -which I'm not- then 32 GB is still over-dimensioned.
It's the age guys. All of a sudden one starts to be realistic.
Back on topic. Fact is these gadgets will become dirt cheap and then I'll buy of course.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
If the last decade has shown us anything, this means that in a couple years I'll have a terabyte flash drive I can carry in my pocket that runs me about $300.
Ave Molech Setting
...cheap particle-detector.
Yyyyup. Can't tell by the looks of this here rocking chair, but it just seemed like last week that you couldn't buy one of these here "sticks" of RAM. No sir-ee, you had to buy "SIMMs," which if my memory serves me correctly stood for "single in-line memory module." Yyyyup, I remember when the Mack-Twooo came out, and by golly, you could put not just one or two, or even four, but you could put a whopping EIGHT whole SIMMs in that baby! Hooo-wee, did she fly after that! Boy I tell ya, those Flying Toasters flew like you'd greased their wings with cod liver oil, I tell you what!
O' course then they had to make those "DIMM" things, and they says it was even better than the Sims... but dat was before we had SimThis and SimThat. No, we just had SimCity on my old black and white Mac SE... and we liked it! Don't need all these fancy colors or big honkin' screens... just give me my eight megahertz and a nine inch screen and I'll be happy, I tells ya...
Now, the SE, yeah, that could only fit I tink mebe four of them DIMMMMMs er SIMMMses or whatever you called them.....
eh, where's my cane?
-- haaz.
"The DataTraveler 300 claims data transfer speeds of up to 20MB/sec, and comes with a five-year guarantee."
With 256GB capacity, I'd want a 5-year guarantee on my data too.
At that price, it should have a 13" LCD screen, Keyboard, Motherboard ... and wifi.
...when you can wait a year or so and get it for $20?
It should come with an eSATA adapter on the other end of the stick. Like this one.
http://www.kanguru.com/eflash.html
it is.... ... a bit bigger though, but was 200Eur
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Don't know about the rest of you, but my netbook has a 2.5" drive just like every laptop does. The only limit to it is how much I'm willing to spend on a new hard drive, and that certainly isn't going to be anywhere near the $1000 for a 256gb flash when I can get a 500gb drive off of Newegg for $100.
... will it blend?
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.