Turn off the Ad Banner  

To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu.

    -----------------------------------------------
This story was printed from CdrInfo.com,
located at http://www.cdrinfo.com.
-----------------------------------------------


Appeared on: Sunday, October 20, 2013
Kingston Predator HyperX 512GB Review


1. Features

Today we have in our hand a high-end USB flash drive by Kingston. The DataTraveler HyperX Predator drive features speeds of up to 240MB/s read and 160MB/s write when connected in a USB 3.0 port, along with of up to 1TB. This means that it is actually pocket backup device fast enough to quickly access, edit and transfer files and applications directly from the drive with no lag and also large enough to store your entire digital world.

The prestigious drive is compliant with USB 3.0 specifications to take advantage of USB 3.0 ports in newer notebooks and desktops, and it includes a USB 3.0 dongle. It’s also backwards compatible with USB 2.0 systems.

 

The capacities of the DataTraveler HyperX go up to 1TB with the following part numbers

- Features


2. The USB Flash Drive

The Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 512GB retails online for €698~766. The price is very high but is seems that Kingston has no serious competition in the category, for a premium product aimed at a limited target group.

The drive is backed by a five-year warranty and free technical support by Kingston.

Let's move on with the package. As you see below, the Predator HyperX 512GB USB3.0 does not come in the typical transparent plastic case seen with most USB flash drives. Besides the flash drive itself, this small metallic package includes a get a key ring and a USB3.0 extension cable to allow us to easily plug the flash drive even when the available free space around our system's USB ports is limited.

The USB flash drive is large in size compared to other drives, as it is 72mm x 26.94mm x 21mm without the key ring

. A zinc alloy metal casing contributes to its high-end design and adds a solid look, while it also makes the drive shock-resistant.

Besides a couple of Kingston logos, a blue LED on the side of the drive flashes during write/read operations.

A custom Kingston key ring and a HyperX Valet Keychain are some extras goodies provided by the company:

The left section of the drive slides along the black middle section to reveal a USB 3.0 connector.

Inside the 521GB drive there are a Phison PS2261 controller and Toshiba 19nm NAND Flash.

3. Benchmarks

We ran some benchmarks with the Kingston Predator HyperX 512GB USB3.0 drive using the following setup:

Windows recognized the USB flash drive and below you see it had been pre-formatted to FAT32 and it offered 478GB of free space.

We used the latest CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 in order to get an idea of the product's performance. The specs rate this drive at 240MB/sec reading, 160MB/sec writing. The CrystalDiskMark reported higher speeds with both compressible and incompressible files.

The 512K/4K/4K QD32 writing results are somewhat low. This is what we generally find when we test USB flash drives, but we did expect more from a € 700+ storage device:

The 0fill test showed an overall lower performance:

The AS SSD Benchmark returned the reading/writing speeds quoted by Kingston. Again, the 4K/4K-64Thrd write scores were very low, meaning you will have to wait further to load small files into the flash drive:

The graph below shows the read and write speeds of the drive when it is dealing with files with fully or partially compressible.

Last but not least, we used the ATTO Disk Benchmark. For a QD4, for files sizes ranging from 64 KB ~8MB, you should expect writing speed of 65~73 MB/s, and a reading speed of 200~238MB/s. Again writing of small files was very low:


4. Final thoughts

Having up to 1TB of storage space in your pocket was a dream some years ago. The Kingston DataTraveler Predator HyperX flash drive offers that convenience plus generous capacities and a performance that cannot match an SSD but is more aligned to a USB flash drive. It comes in an almost luxurious package, a good bundle with some extra accessories and and its solid feel will impress you, although a smaller size would make it look more elegant. Corporate users might complain about the lack of hardware encryption.

But the basic question here is whether the drive is worth the money spent. Consider that 512GB version would cost you around €660~760 (!) and you could spent the same on a 2.5" 512GB SSD and a USB3.0 case, while you could enjoy some extra performance, especially with smaller files.

So this is definitely a matter of convenience and portability here. For sure, the HyperX Predator is also not exactly intended to sell a million units, but it's an innovating product that will primarily appeal to the ultra-premium market who appreciates its benefits.



Home | News | All News | Reviews | Articles | Guides | Download | Expert Area | Forum | Site Info
Site best viewed at 1024x768+ - CDRINFO.COM 1998-2024 - All rights reserved -
Privacy policy - Contact Us .