Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA 6Gbit/s SSD Review

September 20, 2011 - 12:31 pm

“Kingston is one of the most recent manufacturers to have just now launched a SF-2281 SSD, and Kingston states that they have spent this time rigorously testing the HyperX SSD design specifically to weed out any such issues. As we mentioned before Kingston (as with many others) utilizes a custom PCB of its own design, and the company is confident enough in the HyperX to release it despite the ongoing consumer issue other manufacturers utilizing SF-2281 SSDs are having to endure.

Incidentally as we were conducting the review Kingston had even released the KC100 SandForce part for business and enterprise customers featuring a full five year warranty. It’s hard to get more confident in an SSD than that! While we cannot make the claim that a chance doesn’t exist for users to run into an issue, the chance is small enough that we have no qualms recommending (and personally adopting) SandForce SSDs in our own systems.

The most interesting detail about the HyperX’s spec sheet (besides the rather extensive list of OS’s and service packs tested) would have to be the mention of 5K P/E cycles. I’m not aware of any manufacturers that list the program/erase cycles for their SSDs, so to see Kingston listing it must mean it is very confident in the lifespan of its HyperX SSDs. A P/E ratio of 5,000 is the best rating Intel’s 25nm NAND can achieve, and it is great to see a manufacturer like Kingston willing to include such data in the product specs.

I know this conclusion is getting lengthy, but we would be doing our readers a disservice to not cover all the bases. Before considering any SF-2281 drive, potential buyers need to make sure they have a native SATA 6Gb/s port to take advantage of the full speed of the drive. Marvell’s SATA 6Gb/s ports should be avoided altogether due to performance issues, as well. If this means only SATA 3Gb/s ports are available, then less expensive SSDs are a better option.

Now that all the angles have been covered, it is pretty clear Kingston has endeavored to create not just another boutique SSD, but an SSD the company can stand solidly behind. Just handling the HyperX and opening it up revealed Kingston has put some careful thought into the design, but the impressive performance is really what cinches the deal. The HyperX is certainly not the lowest cost synchronous NAND SF-2281 SSD on the market, yet it performs on par with the even more expensive toggle-based NAND SSD in our testing.

With that in mind, and the quality of the SSD itself, we have no trouble awarding Kingston’s 240GB HyperX SSD our Editor’s Choice award. Kingston may have been one of the last to market with a SF-2281 SSD of its own, but it made sure to launch with a solid offering when creating this drive.”