Kingston Technology HyperX 240GB SSD

May the SandForce be with you

Review Following OCZ’s great success with its SandForce SF2281-based Vertex 3 solid-state drive, it seems everyone is jumping on the SandForce bandwagon now. I recently tested Patriot Memory’s Wildfire SSD from, and today I have the latest addition to Kingston Technology’s HyperX product line.

It too uses an SF2281 controller, which Kingston reckons is good for 525MB/s reads and 480MB/s writes in the drive’s 240GB incarnation. The drive is also available with a capacity of 120GB, but Kingston has offered no word about how its performance might differ from that of the higher-capacity model.

As always, Kingston offers this as a bare drive, and as part of an upgrade kit including a USB 2.0 drive enclosure, 3.5in bay adapter, Sata cable and even a screwdriver with three interchangeable bits. To help with your disk migration, there’s also a CD with Acronis True Image HD thrown in.

Kingston has also announced it is preparing a firmware upgrade to boost the drive’s performance, supposedly making it capable of 555MB/s reads and 510MB/s writes. At the time of writing, the update wasn’t yet available so this drive was tested in 525/480 mode.

Enough with the details, let’s see how the HyperX stacks up against the 120GB Patriot Wildfire.

CrystalDiskMark 3

Data throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

Just as I found when I benchmarked the Wildfire, the HyperX is simply on another level above my test rig. I’m seeing maximum performance from ATTO with 412MB/s reads and 209MB/s writes, a fair way off what was promised.