Kingston HyperX 240GB 6Gbps SSD Review
Kingston Brings It With HyperX
Kingston’s HyperX brand is synonymous with high performance which is why they have placed that badge prominently on their newest SSD. This marks Kingston’s first SATA III based SSD and is also their first foray into the world of SandForce with the HyperX drive being powered by the SF-2281 controller. They join an ever growing crowd of manufacturers putting out similar drives so Kingston has some work to do to set their drive apart from the rest. After spending some time with the drive, I think they are off to a great start. There are two capacities available – 120 GB and 240 GB. Both are available as a standalone drive or with an upgrade bundle. Pricing is currently at $269.99 for the 120 GB and $499.99 for the 240 GB. Add another $30 to the 120 GB or $50 to the 240 GB drive for the bundled versions. Kingston sent us the 240 GB bundle for our review.
The HyperX drive has one of the most unique exterior designs we’ve seen. With a brushed aluminum plate in an x-ish shape on the front, fit onto a blue plastic shell, it definitely catches the eye and begs to be displayed prominently in a windowed chassis. Of all the drives I’ve tested, this is my favorite so far in terms of aesthetics. Kingston didn’t stop there.
Kingston HyperX SSD 240GB Features:
- SandForce controller technology
- High-speed SATA Rev 3.0 (6 Gb/s) transfer speeds
- Performance incredible speeds for advanced gaming, multitasking, and multimedia computing power
- Reliable much less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
- Shock-Proof dropping your notebook no longer means losing your data
- Cool & Quiet runs silent and with no moving mechanical parts to generate heat
- Innovative uses NAND Flash memory components
- Supports S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, and Garbage Collection
- Guaranteed three-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support
It’s obvious Kingston spent as much time planning their packaging/marketing
as they did on the design of the drive. The artwork on the box make it
feel more like a graphics card than an SSD.
Nestled in a foam bed is the drive itself. Removing the foam reveals hints of the bundle contents through the HyperX styled “x” carved into the foam itself. The packaging is superb!
Kingston HyperX SSD Features:
- Form factor 2.5″
- Controller 2nd Generation SandForce Controller SF-2281
- Components Intel 25nm Compute-Quality MLC NAND (5k P/E Cycles)
- Interface: SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s), SATA Rev 2.0 (3Gb/s)
- Capacities2 120 GB, 240 GB
- Sequential reads 6Gb/s 555MB/s for all capacities
- Sequential writes 6Gb/s 510MB/s for all capacities
- Sustained Random 4k Read/Write
- 120GB – 20,000/60,000 IOPS
- 240GB – 40,000/60,000 IOPS
- 120GB – 95,000/70,000 IOPS
- 240GB – 95,000/60,000 IOPS
- 120GB – 81,196
- 240GB – 81,394
- 120GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.6 W (TYP) Read / 2.0 W (TYP) Write
- 240GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.5 W (TYP) Read / 2.05 W (TYP) Write
Included in the bundle is a 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter plate complete with screws. A SATA III data cable is also included along with a USB cable to go with an external USB enclosure. A CD containing installation instructions and drive cloning software is included as well.
To assist in the installation, Kingston includes a pen shaped screwdriver with three
bits that are stored under the cap on the top. It displays the
Kingston HyperX logo and the same colors as the drive. Nice.
All in all, it’s a very nice bundle, especially if you have a laptop. The USB enclosure and cloning software make it much easier to upgrade than trying to move it to another system temporarily. Well, so far we are very impressed and we haven’t even run a single benchmark. First, let’s have a look inside.
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