Kingston DataTraveler Max 256GB USB-C Flash Drive with USB 3.2 Gen 2 Performance, Black

Your mileage may vary, but initial testing has gone very well in my niche application. I have a 2017 MacBook Pro (i5-7267U/8 GB RAM, four Thunderbolt 3 ports only) running Windows 10, and I am out of drive space, but I need to install some large software to take on the road with me. I was going to buy an external m.2 chassis, but I thought I would give this drive a try, instead, since it is about 1/3rd the price of what it would cost me to buy an external m.2 chassis, m.2 drive, and Thunderbolt 3 cable. It's also a small fraction of the size and weight.The software in question is already running on my 2022 desktop PC (Z690/i5-12600K/32 GB DDR5/Samsung 980PRO m.2 boot drive, Windows 11) from a 10 years old Kingston 240 GB SSDNow V300 SATA SSD that was pulled from my old Dell laptop. I ran CrystalDiskMark on the old drive in the new PC, because the software runs fine at that speed.The Kingston DataTraveler Max 256 GB is giving me about twice the speed in sequential read/write and about half the speed in random read/write. The SATA drive is NTFS, and the USB drive is exFAT, but that probably doesn't matter. As you can see from the CrystalDiskMark screenshot, I am pulling the advertised 1000 MB/s even from this relatively ancient and obsolete MacBook Pro, so it definitely works fine on a Thunderbolt 3 port using Apple's Boot Camp Windows drivers. I did not include a screenshot of the old drive's results, so as not to confuse people.This is probably going to be fine, but I am installing the software right now to see how well it actually runs on the MacBook Pro, running from the USB-C stick. It will take hours to install, since the developer specifies 140 GB of drive space, and my WiFi is only pulling about 100 Mb/s. If the software doesn't run very well, it will likely be more to do with the difference in memory, CPU, and GPU between the two machines, not the drive speed.Although Kingston is not the only brand of memory and storage I trust, I have relied on Kingston products for decades, and this product gives me every reason to extend that trust. The DDR5 RAM in my desktop PC is also Kingston.Update: After 3 weeks on the road, I can say this drive performed flawlessly in my application.

Pretty fast. I have a Mini pc and had to get an USB C to USB A adapter and both worked well. The need for the adapter is because I didn't fully reads the specs on the mini pc. The only USB C adapter was for the power.... Like the capacity. Plug and play Windows 11 Pro.

I bought an SSK 512GB 1000MB/s and a Kingston USB-C 256GB. The SSK is a little faster and cooler (43°C vs 66°C) after Crystal DiskMark test but three times heavier than the Kingston(33g vs 12g). The Kingston has a 2mm shorter USB-C end than the SSK and a body that is too wide, causing it to collide with another USB-C port next to it, making it impossible to charge through USB-C simultaneously.

Very fast, good value, would purchase again

Great "little" stick drive. It's actually, a few inches long, but it is very fast, installed with no issue, and has a lot of space on it. My wife has a phone with no micro slot and only 128GB of total drive space, so videos and pictures at high resolution fill it quickly. This stick allows you to clear out your phone's photos and vids in a matter of minutes, but still have them for editing and use later.

Speed is very high but the metal used in the USB-C connector is thin and not very durable. Insert and removed with caution. Does not hold up to even medium use.

The USB-C connector does not stick out far enough to connect to certain hubs and back of computers. It also is a wider than normal thumb drive and will cover up other ports. The device is useless, just another poorly designed Kingston product.

Decided to buy a couple of brand new USB drives that were full-on USB3.2 devices to get the fastest speeds on my brand new PC with USB3.2 support. The Kingston DataTraveler Max drives were well-reviewed and reasonably inexpensive so I bought a couple, one with a USB-C and one with a USB-A connector.They are indeed faster than any other drive I have so that's good. Of course there's bottlenecks and restrictions which will reduce the overall speeds somewhat. In my case, I do not get 900MB/s speeds writing to the drives. Instead I'm getting closer to 520MB/s which is nowhere near the claimed speed nor that on various review sites but way faster than my other USB3.0 drives. So these are doing the job reasonably well.Only one complaint - these are ridiculously large. I'm not sure why they chose a plastic sleeve that was 3.25 inches long. I'm willing to bet the internal memory chips are on a very small circuit board like every other drive. So that's an odd choice on Kingston's part.