As the devices we carry around with us get smaller and smaller there is going to be an increasing want (or need) for larger and faster portable storage devices. We have watched over the last few years as the storage capacity of USB flash drives (Pen Drives, Thumb Drives etc.) has grown rapidly. It was not that long ago that a 1-2GB drive was something to have. Now we have small flash drives in the 64, 128 and even 256GB range! Kingston has been one of the companies on the forefront if this charge into larger capacity and faster performance. We have tested out multiple products from them from encrypted storage devices to the hefty DTUltimate G2 32GB USB3.0 thumb drive. Now we have a new product on the bench from Kingston. This one is being sold under their performance name HyperX. The Drive boasts 64GB of storage and 225MB/s of read performance! If the paper is to be believed this is almost twice the performance of the DTUltimate G2, which topped out at around 116MB in our testing. Let’s dive in and see if the paper claims match the real world performance.
The Kingston Data Traveler HyperX 3.0 -Although it does not look it, the DT HyperX 3.0 is just as large as the DTUltimate G2. Kingston has found a very clever way to disguise the size of this drive by angling the sides and also tapering the drive toward the front. This gives it an illusion of being smaller than the G2 and also makes it a little more attractive.Kingston has also added in a couple of other visual effects to add to the appearance of the DT HyperX 3.0. They have used a matte black plastic that resembles a rubberized coating. The way this has been applied sort of resembles an “X” (in keeping with the HyperX theme) with glossy dark blue metal plates in the areas in between.
Our disassembly of the DT HyperX 3.0 was much easier than it was with the DTUltimate G2. This time all we had to do was pull the metal plates off (they were only held on by adhesive tape) and then we were able to split the plastic casing with our thumbnail. From there we pulled out the meat of the drive and had a look at what was inside.
The DT HyperX 3.0 has a Phison PS2251-01-L which is similar to what we had with the DTUltimate G2. However, where the G2 has a 041CB revision the HyperX has an 1142C. From what we have been able to find out this is a greatly improved version of this controller. Another interesting design difference from the G2 to the HyperX 3.0 is the much larger ribbon cable. In the G2 there were two separate ribbon cables that connected the actual NAND flash to the controller PCB. Here there is a single cable that is thicker in addition to being wider than the two cables in the G2 combined. The Flash memory used is Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA80 32nm NAND Flash. Each of these has a 16GB capacity and is widely used in the industry. We have found these in everything from the iPad 2 to Smartphones to some competing SSDs. In short Kingston has made some very nice choices here for their top end USB 3.0 drive.
