Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB Drive Review

1. Introduction2. Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalMark5. HD Tach Ver 3.0.4.06. ATTO Disk Benchmark7. PC Mark Vantage8. Real World Testing9. Closing Thoughts10. View All Pages

Kingston have impressed us recently with many of their products, especially the low cost, high performance SSDNow V100 128GB SSD drive. Today we are looking at their new external storage solution called HyperX MAX 3.0 which utilises the latest USB 3.0 superspeed interface.

According to Kingston the HyperX Max 3.0 drives (MLC) can achieve speeds of up to 195 MB/s read and 160 MB/s write which will be tantalizingly desirable for demanding performance users on the move. The life expectancy of the drive is said to be 1,000,000 hours and it will support Windows Vista (SP1, SP2), Windows 7 and Windows XP (SP3). To get maximum performance you obviously need a USB 3.0 capable motherboard or expansion card, but it is fully backwards compatible. All models have a 3 year warranty with free 24/7 support.

Kingston will be offering models 64GB, 128GB and 256GB in size and we are looking today at the 128GB model.

Key selling points:

• Impressive write speed of up to 160MB/sec.
• Read speed up to 195 MB/s
• SuperSpeed Certified USB 3.0 – 10x faster than the transfer speed of USB 2.0
• Shock-Proof
• No moving parts means no mechanical failures
• Portable
• Mobile design, USB port powered; no external power supply required
• Dimensions: 73.49mm x 118.60 mm x 12.00 mm : 2.89” x 4.67” x 0.47”

The product we received was straight from the factory and wasn't supplied in any retail packaging. Kingston informed us that the final product may look slightly different… the sticker with the product name for instance on our review sample wasn't adhered very securely and kept slipping off.

The HyperX Max 3.0 is supplied in a blue metal chassis which is an attractive design. On the rear are four rubber feet which cover sealing screws. The final retail product is likely going to have a sticker over one of these screws which would invalid the warranty if it was opened.

The HyperX Max 3.0 ships with a USB 3.0 power cable specifically created for this product. This cable is also backwards compatible with a USB 2.0/1.1 port, so no power leads are required.

After removing the rubber feet to expose the screws we were able to pry open the chassis.

Internally we can see the Toshiba T6UG1XBG SSD controller. This is used in other Kingston products, such as the second generation SSDNow V+ units. This design is optimised to help enhance the thermal performance of the product – the IC components have a thermal filler pad to transfer heat to the metal enclosure for instance.

The Toshiba T6UG1XBG processor is a 43nm part with native TRIM support and in theory it can offer speeds of up to 230 MBps (read) and 180MBps (write). Inside the chassis there is a small adapter module to convert the SATA drive to USB 3.0. Buffering is handled by the 128mb Micron 9LA17-D9HSJ DDR DRAM module, a very good performer.

For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4 which you can get yourself over here. We try to use free programs and some real world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.

This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.

Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB

Processor: Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.6ghz
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme 6
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600mhz 6GB (3x2GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake 750W Toughpower Grand
Chassis: Cooler Master CM 690 II
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2410 (A00)

Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark
HD Tach
CrystalMark
PCMark Vantage (x64 HDD Suite)

All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration. Median averages were extrapolated from the results – this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64.

Our speeds peak around 190 MB/s read and 170 MB/s write which is a fantastic set of results.

Next we want to try the HyperX Max 3.0 128GB connected to a USB 2.0 port.

When moving from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 we can see a huge 454.7% increase with sequential reads and a 415.2% increase with 512k reading. 4k and 3k QD32 performance increases aren't quite as dramatic, but values between 160% and 172% are recorded.

Write performance is just as significant an improvement, even more so when we get to the 4k and 3k QD32 tests recording 411% and 330% increases respectively.

I have been using HDTach for many years now and always find it is an invaluable benchmark to ascertain potential levels of performance. HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.

Again we see huge differences when moving from the USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 interface. Our average read rate is around 160MB/s via USB 3.0 which drops to 33MB/s on the older technology – a 378% speed difference, not only noticeable in our benchmarking, but in our real world file performance testing (more on this later).

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.

The HyperX Max 3.0 drive under USB 3.0 conditions delivers an average of around 190 MB/s read and 155 MB/s write. This drops to around 34MB/s read and 30 MB/s write when plugged into a USB 2.0 port. This translates to around a 460% read speed increase and a 416% write speed increase, much in line with the other synthetic testing earlier.

We use Futuremark’s PCMark Vantage in many of our system reviews and we felt that it was worth an inclusion in this review. It is still a synthetic suite, but it uses many real world characteristics to try and judge overall performance levels. We are using the 64 bit version of the HDD Suite for this testing. We also compare against a Samsung F1 1TB drive on this page.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security. From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.

This time we compared the Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 against a Samsung F1 1TB 7,200rpm Hard Disk Drive.

The Samsung HDD had a tough time competing with the SSD based HyperX Max 3.0, getting hammered in every test by huge margins. This is to be expected with flash memory and the capable Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller.

It doesn’t matter how good any of the synthetic suites are, the real meat of the testing has to be under absolute real world conditions. This proves difficult as to record results we have to narrow down fluctuation. Therefore while we would say these are the most useful results to get from this review, there is always going to be a slight margin for error – its not absolutely scientific.

Today for testing we first copied a 3.9GB MKV file to and from the Kingston HyperX USB 3.0 drive. It is worth mentioning that the HyperX Max 3.0 drive is supplied with a FAT32 directory structure. If you wanted to store files larger than this, then you would need to reformat to NTFS on Windows (or NFS on Macintosh). We are using a Crucial 256GB RealSSD as the partner for these tests.

Real world benefits mean that you spend less time waiting when copying big files back and forward between drives.

Next we created a 3GB folder of mixed sized files, this is to reproduce a real world scenario – many users have folders of word documents, picture files and even database documents.

Our real world testing proves that the synthetic results earlier are actually very accurate. The time to copy our mixed file folder was reduced by between 400-550%, when we switched from USB 2.0 to the USB 3.0 interface. If you need to copy files in a hurry, then this drive is going to be hard to beat.

The Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 128GB drive is a sure fire hit for performance users on the move. The read and write results are well in excess of any other external unit we have tested to date which means that you can get the job done much faster. If you frequently move folders of small files between computers under tight time restrictions then you will spend much less time sighing and looking at your watch.

Synthetic testing is useful, but it doesn't always paint a fully accurate picture of the product on test. In this case however the real world tests mirrored the synthetic testing, showing gains of up to, and over 400% in specific situations. A quarter of the usual time taken is a huge saving, not to be disregarded easily.

Unfortunately there is a caveat … many users will have to upgrade their motherboard to get USB 3.0 support, or spend more money on a dedicated USB 3.0 controller card, which can cost around £20. Additionally, if you were being creative, it is possible to use the drive as an internal Sata Drive, however you would be recommended to purchase a SATA enclosure as using this ‘naked' could very well be a recipe for disaster.

Currently, the drive is due for release at $280 which translates to around £220 inc vat in the UK, a reasonable asking price for such a high performing product. No stores yet have stock, but be sure to check out Yoyotech for availability in December.

KitGuru says: Another fantastic product from Kingston for the performance freaks among you.

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