Design wise, the DataTraveler mini's unibody style scores big points for me. One of the biggest complains I've heard from users of USB flash drives using a separate cap to protect the USB connector, is that it is very easy to lose the cap. With the mini, the USB connector's cover is built into the drive. It works by sliding open to reveal the connector, then sliding back closed when not being used.

Living up to its name, the Kingston DataTraveler mini USB flash drive is in fact mini! Its face size is only a little bigger than that of a quarter (yes, Canadian quarters are the same size as US quarters). In terms of thickness, it's the thickest USB flash drive we've tested before at 10.3mm thick. With that being said, it's still very small, and for example it would fit comfortably on a keychain.

The indicator light of the DataTraveler mini is green, and it flashes when reading or writing to the drive. When using the mini, adjacently stacked USB ports will not be able to be used. The drive is just too thick that it would block the connectors above and below the one being used for the drive. Ports side-by-side may be accessible depending on spacing between the ports. Examining many notebooks, motherboards and USB hubs, this should be the case most of the time.

Performance Testing

While the drive is not marketed as a performance beast, the Kingston DataTraveler mini churned out very respectable theoretical read speeds in the HDTach test.

Random access time comes in relatively low at 2.9ms, which is just a couple of milliseconds behind OCZ's Rally 2, the fastest flash drive we've tested so far. In comparison, the average 7200RPM SATA hard drive comes in between 12-14ms for this test.