Kingston DataTraveler Retail Costs – Flash Drive Facts Preparing A New Series Of Articles To Spot Fakes And Counterfeits

Posted on April 3, 2009 by

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What are the average costs for Kingston DataTraveler usb flash drives – the DTI/2GB DTI/4GB DTI/8GB DTI/16GB models? These older usb flash drives are currently the target of counterfeiters in the orient. They use and or produce flash drives that look like the originals with a serious different and intent! Victims of fake flash purchases on internet sites and eBay learn very painfully what that difference is. These small capacity flash drives have been magically transformed into super sized capacity! Yes, they suddenly become 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 120GB, 128GB, 240GB and 360GB capacity according to operating systems. They are dangerous to use. Data loss results the moment you exceed the true capacity of the flash drive chip. Counterfeiters call this upgrading – the rest of the world refers to these usb flash drives as fakes. Those who work in the FrankenFlash project call them? You guessed it – FrankenFlash!

FlashDriveFacts at http://flashdrivefacts.wordpress.com/ is releasing a series of articles on Kingston fakes and counterfeits starting on April 4th, 2009.

Previously they covered the Sony MicroVault fakes. The next series is for the Kingston DataTraveler.

It is important that people know the current retail prices for the genuine models in the Kingston DataTraveler series. It will explain how victims of counterfeit Kingston DataTraveler usb flash drives, get such amazingly low prices. The sad truth is they simply paid about 30% more than the real drive size retail to own a fake. Unfortunately the larger the “advertised size” the more they end up paying. In some cases, astonishing prices.

According to SOSFakeFlash, not only are victims in Europe and North America, but there appears to be a very heavy traffic for these counterfeits in India. Consumers in India are not strangers to fakes and counterfeits, that is why they chose the Kingston brand in the first place – to avoid it!

FlashChipTutor decided to visit Kingston’s website and do a shopping trip. At Kingston you can search for models and then ask where you can buy them. Here are the retail prices FlashChipTutor found for March 20th, 2009 in US Dollars.

Kingston DTI/2GB

2GBCurrentRetail

Kingston DTI/4GB

4GBCurrentRetail

Kingston DTI/8GB

DTI-8GB

8GBCurrentRetail

Kingston DTI/16GB

DTI-16GB

16GBCurrentRetail

What do you see in the price differences? The first three models are very cheap. Lime, purple and black. On sale the black 8GB is about $20 in the USA. Note these are retail prices, not wholesale prices. These are the models most frequently used or at least this is the colour coding for the many fakes that have been found in the Kingston DataTraveler series.

You will also find blue, the DTI/512GB and the grey DTI/1GB being used in super sized counterfeits.DTI-512

DTI-1GB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drives presented should be used as a guide to help you identify fakes. The current prices should make consumers aware that they are not going to get large capacity at a small price.

At the moment the largest capacity offered by Kingston is 64GB to the consumer market. Do not fall for any techo babble from sellers there are no 120GB or higher available. 128GB is on the drawing board by some manufacturers but they are still experimenting and trying things out. The most stable capacity at the moment is 16GB.

In the DataTraveler series known as DTI/xxx the largest capacity ever made available is 16GB.

Kingston has new line, known as DataTraveler Generation 2 (G2) DTIG2/xGB that goes up to 32GB. The colour codes differ and the drives have a different shape.

DTIG2-4GB

DTIG2-32GB

Additional reading Reading:

It you discover you have purchased a counterfeit Kingston USB Flash drive Report in to SOSFakeFlash.

To Review all the counterfeits found on eBay you can visit these two sites. Just type in the word Kingston in the search box to see what is currently documented:

Update April 4th, 2009 – Visit these sites for additional information:

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Posted in: Flash Memory Education