Performance

USB 3.0

Kingston advertises read speeds of 150 MB/s while write performance is lower with just 70 MB/s. Looking at ATTO, Kingston has chosen quite conservative numbers, since the drive peaks at 180 MB/s read and well above 80 MB/s write.


Taking a look at HDTach, the trend clearly continues in terms of read performance, as the drive clocks in well above 180 MB/s across the entire flash capacity. Write speed, however, does drop to a 66.4 MB/s average, so Kingston is properly advertising the real world performance of the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G3 flash drive.


These numbers make the Kingston drive one of the fastest we have had the pleasure of reviewing. It is only beaten by its older brother, the HyperX DataTraveler, in terms of read performance. For write speeds, the drive - while still very good - manages to come in fourth, beating the Lexar JumpDrive that is an alternative product of its target audience. Even so, there are drives out there that are noticeably faster.

USB 2.0

USB 2.0 speeds are as advertised, with 30 MB/s read and 20 MB/s write. This time, both numbers are clearly well below what the drive can push on average. The DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 G3 manages almost 35 MB/s read and nearly 25 MB/s write.