Launched this month, Kingston Technology's DataTraveler 150 USB Flash Drive, already available in a 32GB version, now comes with 64GB memory.

The only difference we could see between the 150 model and other USB Flash drives was its thickness due to the extra circuitry packed into its 3in x 0.9in x 0.5in body.

Operating systems supported by the drive include Microsoft Windows Vista, XP and 2000, along with Mac OS X, and Linux with kernel versions 2.6 and higher. However, the device does not support Microsoft's ReadyBoost system, which improves Windows Vista performance by speeding up random disk reads through caching data on the Flash drive.

We checked data transfer rates using SimpliSoftware's RW HD Tach version 3.0.1.0 benchmarking utility, which gave Kingston's DT150 an average read speed of 31.8MB/s and an average write speed of 9.7MB/s.

Our test system had an Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz processor, and 1GB of 533MHz system memory running under Windows XP Professional.

We also ran some real-world file transfer tests using a system running Vista Ultimate with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz processor and 2GB of 667MHz system memory. The test file used more than 4,000 files, adding up to a total data size of 3.14GB, and gave data write rates of between 3.3MB/s and 3.7MB/s. Our write test file mix had some very small files, 1KB and less, which are not handled as well as larger files. Files larger than 20GB gave write rates of more than 6.5MB/s.

One problem we did encounter was that Windows XP can format drives with a 32GB capacity with the 32-bit file allocation table (FAT32) file system, but drives larger than that, such as Kingston's 64GB drive, can only be formatted with the new technology file system (NTFS), which is the format used during testing.

Talking to Kingston's experts, formatting with NTFS has to be done using the disk management administrative tool, available through the control panel. Kingston say that users formatting the DT150/64GB using FAT32 in a Macbook Pro should have no problems.

Currently the major problem with these flash drives is the USB 2.0 standard itself, which is beginning to show its age, especially when it has to deal with drives with such a large capacity as the DT150 64GB. However, two announcements this month suggest help is at hand for users wanting to use large capacity devices to the full.

Semiconductor vendor Symwave announced what it claims is the world's first physical layer device to comply with the USB 3.0 specification, and transfer data at a theoretical 5Gbit/s or 625MB/s. A device which Symwave says is 10 times faster than today's USB devices would be welcome, especially as two to three years down the road it is not hard to envisage Flash drives with capacities of 1TB.

The second announcement concerns a dual-ended USB 2.0/eSATA device launched by hardware peripheral manufacturer Kanguru Solutions. One end of the device has an external eSATA interface, which can boost read/write data transfer rates significantly. For example, a recent review of Intel's X25-M 80GB solid state drive gave read speeds of about 135MB/s.

With the furore over data loss continuing, a device such as this would pose significant problems for IT managers with its capacity to store large amounts of data without having any intrinsic encryption. However, Kingston does sell flash disks with onboard encryption.

The Kingston DT150 64GB has a five-year warranty and is available now.