Kingston Hyper X 240GB SSD Review

Kingston Hyper X 240GB SSD Review

Introduction

Branding is one of the most important elements of nearly every consumer item around. No matter what the product it is you’re either making or selling, having a readily identifiable brand is vital.

If you can not only make your brand something that people are used to, and therefore be more likely to purchase when confronted with a choice, but can adhere to product control enough to make it super-desirable you’re really on to a winner because people will buy it ‘sight unseen’. There are many possible example but the most obvious of course is Apple and their range of iDevices. There are many phones and tablets with better specifications, a wider range of features and much better value, yet such is the desirability that the the public cannot buy them quick enough. Such is the power of a readily identifiable brand.

Indeed there is a joke I’m sure we’ve all heard that as long as it was sleekly designed and had ‘i’ in front of it, Apple customers will buy anything. However, the pitfall of having a brand that people adore is if you release a product that doesn’t match up to the high standards previous ones have set then the public perception will quickly shift from “Brand X is awesome” into “Brand X isn’t”, regardless of the quality of the item itself.

Kingston’s Hyper X memory has been some of the highest performing memory for a long time, and just seeing that logo gives a warm sense that the item you’ve purchased will be great. So you can understand what a huge statement of confidence it is that Kingston have finally decided to brand the latest in their line of Solid State Drives as a Hyper X one. Does it live up to the name?

Technical Specifications

A quick look through the specifications and we can see why Kingston have finally decided to apply the Hyper X branding to this drive. The very latest SandForce controller coupled to some blazing Intel NAND and the SATA III interface is the kind of high-speed combination that has us foaming in anticipation.

Indeed Kingston have seen fit to advertise this drive as being capable of a monumental 500MB/s plus in both read and write settings. Mind-blowing speeds indeed, if the drive can live up to such lofty claims. 

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)
Capacities 120 GB, 240 GB 
Sequential reads 6Gb/s 555MB/s for all capacities
Sequential writes 6Gb/s 510MB/s for all capacities
Drive Technology Support
S.M.A.R.T. TRIM and Garbage Collection
Warranty/support Three-year warranty with free 24/7 support  
Power Consumption 240GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.5 W (TYP) Read / 2.05 W (TYP) Write
 
Dimensions 69.85 x 100 x 9.5mm 
Weight 81g
Operating Temperatures 0°C ~ 70°C
Shock Resistance 1500G
MTBF 1,000,000 Hrs

 

As ever, let’s take a look at it before we get down to brass tacks.