A paragon among USB Flash Drives, it claims outstanding Read/Write figures to stretch USB 3.0 further than those which have come before, but can it live up to those claims?
Product On Review: Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Kingston Technology
Street Price: ~£99 RRP (at time of review)
If you’ve taken any more than a passing interest in the NAND Flash or RAM market the name Kingston Technology will have come up time and again. In the DRAM market Kingston supply 46% of memory modules, a staggering figure when you stop to consider it, and also hold a significant position in both USB flash memory drives and cards. When it comes to memory of both a volatile and non-volatile nature, Kingston are not underdogs by any stretch of the imagination.
In the past we’ve had the pleasure of testing a number of Kingston SSDs and become familiar with their HyperX performance branding. Both the HyperX 240GB and HyperX 3K 120GB SSDs proved to be extremely fast drives, with the latter in particular also showing great value to the consumer. That said, both are desktop drives; those who want to see this level of performance at the portable level will need to purchase additional eSATA/USB enclosures.
Or will they? Enter the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0, an external USB 3.0 flash drive designed to make the most of the high-speed USB 3.0 interface and their knowledge of NAND Flash.
Power users have long known HyperX as the innovative brand from Kingston Technology and the new DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 Flash drive continues this tradition by featuring the fastest speeds and largest capacity Kingston offers for portable storage. Featuring a high-speed 8-channel controller that provides USB 3.0 data transfer speeds with capacities of up to 256GB, DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 is the perfect solution for expanding a notebook’s storage and for quickly storing, transferring and backing up any digital lifestyle. Users will save time associated with opening and transferring large files and applications between devices.
We’re reviewing the 64GB version of the DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 today, but those who demand more capacious portable storage will be able to take advantage of 128 and 256GB offerings with similarly impressive performance numbers.
Specifications and Features
Technical Specifications
Capacity:- 64GB
Speed:-
USB 3.0: 225MB/s read and 135MB/s write
USB 2.0: 30MB/s read/write
Dimensions:-
74.99mm x 23.29mm x 15.9mm (L x W x H)
2.952″ x 0.916″ x 0.626″ (L x W x H)
Operating temperature 0° to 60°C/ 32° to 140°F
Storage temperature -20° to 85°C/ -4° to 185°F
Speed:-
USB 3.0: 225MB/s read and 135MB/s write
USB 2.0: 30MB/s read/write
Dimensions:-
74.99mm x 23.29mm x 15.9mm (L x W x H)
2.952″ x 0.916″ x 0.626″ (L x W x H)
Operating temperature 0° to 60°C/ 32° to 140°F
Storage temperature -20° to 85°C/ -4° to 185°F
Additional Features:
Practical — Durable metal and rubber casing with a solid lanyard loop
8-channel architecture
Backwards compatible — with USB 2.0
ReadyBoost™ Support
Guaranteed — five-year warranty, free technical support
8-channel architecture
Backwards compatible — with USB 2.0
ReadyBoost™ Support
Guaranteed — five-year warranty, free technical support
Packaging And Contents
The external packaging certainly belies the premium nature of the product within. Clear on the front are Kingston’s speed claims for the drive – 225MB/s Read and 135MB/s Write – also making it clear that the drive is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, if at a lower speed. Also worthy of note is that Five Year Warranty – there’s no effort made to keep the consumer in the dark, thankfully.
The rear is fairly sparse in terms of information, perhaps in order to allow retailers space for pricing information. Whatever the reason, Kingston reference Windows compatibility, as well as a few key features in 11 languages.
A Closer Look
Kingston’s DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 line follows the aesthetic design of many other products in Kingston’s HyperX line, with blue sections of the housing imbued with a bright metallic pain finish. The vivid blue and matt black colouring with stylised X evokes the HyperX SSD line especially, but also mirrors the HyperX Blu DRAM line design.
The rubberised coating of the black area’s give the drive a grippy, tactile finish – it shouldn’t be easy for it to slip out of your hand if you’re a little rushed. Even if it does, the ruggedised design means that it should survive accidental drops. Some USB drives will rattle when shaken, indicating that the housing is not tightly securing the internal PCB; the DataTraveler HyperX has no such issue.
A nice additional touch is that the drive lid can be securely attached to the rear, which will certainly prove to be useful in ensuring that the lid isn’t misplaced when in use. Other companies are experimenting on lidless solutions with a sliding mechanism, but Kingston’s approach is simple and effective. The rear of the drive also features a blue flashing activity LED.
Whilst discussing the housing, we should take particular note of the dimensions and a potential compatibility issue. The drive dimensions are necessary to account for circuitry and flash chips, but that does result in the drive being taller and wider than many. On a standard motherboard I/O backpanel this will cause the drive itself to obstruct ports directly above, generally another USB or network port.
Small form factor systems and configurations which use the majority of I/O ports will need to be especially aware of this issue. An example would be the recently reviewed ZOTAC ZBOX AD11 PLUS, which locates USB 3.0 ports near to the HDMI port and can cause the Drive to foul the HDMI connector. As with any flash drive, using a USB 3.0 front panel port is sensible where possible, but we’re aware that not all chassis and motherboards have that option.
Testing System And Methodology
Test System
The following are the crucial system specs for this test.
CPU:- Intel i5-2500K @ Stock
RAM:- 8GB GEIL DDR3-1600
Motherboard:- Asus P8P67-B3 Pro
– NEC/Renasas USB 3.0 Controller
SSD:- Kingston SSDNow V+100 (230MB/s / 180MB/s Read/Write)
RAM:- 8GB GEIL DDR3-1600
Motherboard:- Asus P8P67-B3 Pro
– NEC/Renasas USB 3.0 Controller
SSD:- Kingston SSDNow V+100 (230MB/s / 180MB/s Read/Write)
When testing the drive we wanted to evaluate the general speed of the drive under a couple of different conditions. As many users are still without USB 3, especially in a corporate environment, we also felt that testing the potential of the drive under USB 2.0 was important. Ideally a fast USB 3.0 drive should max out the available bandwidth of USB 2.0 – 480Mbps or 35MB/s theoretically – rather than only show an improvement under optimal conditions.
USB 3.0
The Maximum theoretical bandwidth of USB 3.0 is 5Gbps (625 MB/s); under the most common data encoding parameters this figure drops to ~400MB/s, still dwarfing the spec limits of the Datatraveler HyperX 3. Though the absolute maximum data transfer rate for the drive under reasonable conditions is generally of primary importance, it’s also sensible to capture the performance with small file sizes and IOPS to allow a detailed comparison with other USB 3 drives and usage scenario’s.
For now, we only have the facility to test the drive in relative isolation and against previous generation USB 2.0 drives. Over time we hope to have the opportunity to increase the data pool by testing additional thumb drives.
USB 2.0
Here, all we wish to test is the speed of the drive in relation to more affordable USB 2.0 drives, and assess whether it can make the most of the 35MB/s available in this configuration. We will be comparing the DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 to a Kingston 8GB DataTraveler SE9, which has fairly typical specs for USB 2.0 flash drives.
Testing Notes:-
1. Poorly configured or malfunctioning USB 3.0 ports may not recognise USB 3.0 devices, but still work in USB 2.0 mode for USB 2.0 devices. Do not assume that the drive is at fault if this occurs, especially if other USB 3.0 devices have yet to be tested.
2. For reasons unknown, some USB 3.0 ports may be limited to ~135MB/s read/write operation. Though not an issue for most drives, external USB 3.0 SSD enclosures and flash drives which are capable of greater speed will suffer.
3. The DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 comes pre-formatted at FAT32, allowing file sizes up to 4GB. In order to test with larger files, we re-formatted the drive as NTFS.
Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0
CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software that analyses different types of hard drive. Giving sequential benchmark write and read statistics in MB/s. A simple program that is very useful.
CrystalDiskMark’s sequential read/write test provides generally good best case results for various storage media. The data is compressible, which is why Sandforce-based drives tend to perform well in this benchmark over suites with incompressible data; comparing these results with those for AS SSD should allow the assessment of whether drive write operations are benefiting from undocumented write compression.
Benchmarks: ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
Benchmarks: AS SSD v1.6.4237
AS SSD Benchmark is a straightforward tool for measuring the speed of your SSD drive.
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
As previously noted, the AS SSD benchmark includes the facility to use incompressible data, representing data such as RAR files or encoded video which has already undergone compression. If the flash controller of the DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 utilised compression, we would expect a heavy (40-50%) penalty to Write rates vs the CrystalDiskMark and ATTO benchmarks.
Benchmarks: IOMeter
Iometer is based on a client–server model, where one instance of the Iometer graphical user interface is managing multiple ‘workers’ (each one representing a separate Dynamo.exe process) which are doing the I/O. Iometer performs Asynchronous I/O – accessing files or block devices (later one allowing to bypass the file system buffers).
Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.
Iometer allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file.
For USB Pen Drives, an IOPS test is pretty much the definition of ‘unfair’ as it simulates scenarios for which USB drives are not typically designed. Our test, which we put desktop storage through, uses IOMETER to perform 4K 50%/50% read/write cycles with 100% Random Distribution – reporting back on IOPS. This generally represents heavy database gruntwork, not something your average thumb drive should have to cope with.
As you can see, a thumb drive which in terms of peak data transfer rates can generally trounce mechanical HDDs struggles to keep up in raw IOP performance; both USB thumb drive and HDD are firmly put in their place by the affordable SATA III 6Gbps HyperX 3K SSD.
Benchmarks: USB 2.0 File Transfer Speeds
Although USB 3.0 capability is becoming all the more ubiquitous as mainboard manufacturers roll it in as standard on new motherboards, USB 2.0 is still important for businesses and educational organisations with a longer hardware in-service times. USB 3.0’s backwards compatibility is especially useful, and improved controllers in modern drives may allow full use to be made of USB 2.0’s available bandwidth.
The test implemented is straightforward:- measure the time to transfer (and hence MB/s transfer speed) a sufficiently large file when using a USB 2.0 interface. In this case we have chosen a 1.546 GB MPEG4-encoded video file.
The test implemented is straightforward:- measure the time to transfer (and hence MB/s transfer speed) a sufficiently large file when using a USB 2.0 interface. In this case we have chosen a 1.546 GB MPEG4-encoded video file.
Conclusion
Lets put the data transfer rates the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 64GB is able to reach into some form of context: there are 2.5″ SATA SSDs, still used very effectively in many machines right now, which would struggle to keep up. It’s mind-boggling that in so short a time portable flash storage has moved on to these speeds, even using the low-cost USB 3.0 interface.
Performance-wise, the DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 lives up to advertised speeds under what should be judged as optimal conditions, and it doesn’t rely on on-the-fly compression to do this. On the other hand, random read/write performance suffers greatly in this form factor; 4K random write performance trails even older mechanical HDDs.
Reduced performance using small file sizes is typical of all storage media but particularly in this drive, and in this case speak to the strengths of the drive: workhorse shunting of large data files from one device to another. Due to this limitation it’s not quite suitable as a replacement desktop drive, especially if crunching workloads benefiting from high IOPS.
Our hesitancy in leaving a full-throated endorsement is the necessity for this sort of speed from portable storage. The value for many will be somewhat niche – there aren’t too many people who will see a meaningful impact to their productivity by having a >200/100 MB/s read/write USB Drive over USB 2.0 speeds, but those who do will see a massive improvement. Users who swap out hardware and OS frequently will also see a benefit – the drive can comfortably be used as a repository for a mobile Steam installation, though capacity will be tight for many.
Those concerned for USB 3.0 as a standard looking forward can rest easy. The inclusion of USB 3.0 recently on Apple’s MacBook Pro and the continued dearth of Thunderbolt-enabled portable storage indicates that the standard is here to stay for the foreseeable future at least, whereas this time last year there were a few questions yet to be addressed.
Without a doubt, the Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 is Gold Award standard hardware which lives up to the HyperX branding. It’s fast, durable, backwards compatible and backed by a 5 year warranty.
Pros
+ Speed
+ Durability
+ 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
Cons
– Premium speed commands a premium price
+ Speed
+ Durability
+ 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
Cons
– Premium speed commands a premium price
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
