HyperX 3K SSD: Reducing the Cost of Speed
When Kingston first put the HyperX name on an SSD we were there to see it’s release. The goal was simple, they wanted to produce a super fast SSD with high reliability and ton of little extras to make it stand out in the crowd. They met that mark and we were thrilled. So when I heard the HyperX 3K was going to be a reduced cost version of the Hyper X I was concern, I mean we paid the extra cost for the entire packages, what would be slashed to reduce the price? The answer is not as much as you would think.
The box on the Hyper X 3K looks very similar to the original HyperX and while it is well made it does not have the nice slide off top. So they obviously cut some of the cost by reducing the packaging. Once inside the box however we see an identical feature pack to what we saw in our original HyperX
review.
We have the drive, screw driver, 2.5” external enclosure with USB cable, SSD mounting bracket and cloning software. The exact same feature pack we had in the original Hyper X. This time however instead of a blue coloring on the SSD we have a dark gun metal. Also just like the original Hyper X the 3K carries a 3 year warranty. Okay that’s great the packaging is nice and the extras are the same but what about were it counts, under the hood.
From a pure performance point of view the drives are identical, what that means is FAST. The Hyper3K was within 2% of the HyperX in the every benchmark, usually bettering it. This BTW is normal since it is a bigger drive and bigger SSDs of the same model tend to be faster.
The difference internal is found in the drives name. The 3K is an indication of how many write cycles the memory can perform within it’s expected life time. The original HyperX uses 5K cycle memory.
Now this may sound like a bad thing but it is not really that big of a deal. On last weeks show we talked about how SSDs had more life to them than people expected and worked out the math with you. Well this week I sat down with some folks from Kingston and went over my calculation method from last week and confirmed that I was doing it correctly. What this means is even with the 3K memory, if we assume a full drive and do 3gig of writes EVERY day with the over provisioning on the drive it should be good for around 20 years of use.
Think about it 20 years! You are very likely to have moved on to a new drive before this one fails. Now in fairness it will likely not last 20 years. This is not a fault of Kingston or the drive but just a fact when it comes to electronics. The everyday wear of small surges and low voltages causes electronics to wear faster than the expected cycle but these factors effect all electronics equally. What you need to know is the write cycle of 3K is not likely to ever be an issue.
Now I am sure you were expecting a longer write up on this drive. Sorry to disappoint you but there is no need. If you want more data on the performance and features of the upgrade kit then I refer you to our original Kingston HyperX review. With the exception of the outer box the package is identical, even down to the foam being cutout in the HyperX symbol. I know this may seem a bit lazy and maybe it is but when you have a drive that is REALLY fast, has a great and fully packed feature set AND costs 15% to 20% less than is equally fast and feature packed big brother, what more is there say?
Okay maybe one more thing, can I have 2 please!?
Okay seriously, at $289 the HyperX 3k 240 Gig SSD is about middle of the road pricing but has extras that make it way ahead of other drives in it’s category.
Now if they would make a red one to make it a little faster. By the way, be sure to tune into this weeks show as we announce the winner of one of these great SSDs.
Segment as aired live 5 May 2012
