Kingston HyperX 3K is their top of the line SSD. Kingston has used 3K NAND memory (hence the 3K tag) instead of the 5K NAND of the original HyperX drives. The 3K label means the NAND should last up to 3,000 full writes of the new drive’s maximum capacity versus the 5,000 full writes of the original HyperX.
Because of this the NAND is less expensive helping to drive the price down while retaining the pace you expect of a drive carrying the HyperX branding.
Kingston quote sequential read/write figures of 555MB/s and 510MB/s respectively for the drive, similar results were produced through through the ATTO benchmark. The drive produced figures of 551MB/s and 512MB/s for read/write speeds respectively.
As with all SandForce controlled drives its handling of incompressible data isn’t anywhere near as impressive as it is with compressible files. When it comes to the drive’s internals, Kingston has used Intel for the NAND chips. With eight chips housed on either side of the PCB, and with the SandForce 2281VB1 controller joining one group on the board.
Although the new drive uses NAND with reduced program/ erase cycles than the original HyperX drives, in reality most people won’t even reach that many cycles. What it does do, however, is put a drive with enthusiast performance at a price point in reach of a lot more people.
Sequential read performance
AS SSD: Megabytes per second: Bigger is better
KINGSTON HYPERX 3K 120GB: 436
4K random write (incompressible data)
AS SSD: Megabytes per second: Bigger is better
KINGSTON HYPERX 3K 120GB: 50.73
