Kangaru eSATA Thumb Drive Hits 3 Gb/s
By Nick Mokey
November 19, 2008
With both eSATA and USB 2.0 connectors, the e-Flash drive delivers the speed and capacity of an external hard drive, in the size of a thumb drive.
With USB 3.0 still well over the horizon and USB 2.0 starting to show its age on enormous flash drives, Kanagaru Solutions has leapt onto the next best connector: eSATA. On Wednesday, the company released the e-Flash, a thumb drive with both USB 2.0 and eSATA connectors.
Unlike USB 2.0, which has a theoretical speed limit of 480 Mbit/s, the Kangaru’s eSATA port will bump that speed limit to 3 Gigabit/s, about six times faster. To take advantage of the enhanced speed, Kangaru will offer the drives in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB sizes.
The drive also features a strong aluminum housing that can optionally be engraved, and preloaded Hotswap! software for managing eSATA connections.
Kangaru currently sells the 16GB and 32GB drives for $85 and $120 respectively. The company hopes to make the 64GB variant available in January, though pricing is not yet known.