Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB SSD Review

[Guest]

Kingston brings a new flavor to its premium HyperX product line using Phison's S10 controller. Can it serve enough performance to offset its price tag?

Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB SSD Review : Read more

 

[wtfxxxgp]

ouch

 

[mapesdhs]

Is there really anyone who would buy one of these over an EVO or Pro? I don't get Kingston's MO at all...

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

Right in your article there's a link to Amazon that has the Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB for USD110. There's also a link to the SanDisk Ultra II 240GB on Amazon for USD85.

I do realize that you can't track all the pricing changes and that you base your reviews on the MSRP, I just thought that I'd point out in the comments that your "Price" con could perhaps no longer be justified.

Thanks for the review Chris.

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

Is there really anyone who would buy one of these over an EVO or Pro? I don't get Kingston's MO at all...

In my current situation I'd go for a drive that gives me good value for money, which in my country, last time I checked, is a SanDisk or a Crucial, not the Samsung. However, your point is quite valid. Let's wait for the firmware upgrade, perhaps Chris might be willing to revisit this review.

 

[CRamseyer]

The issue with pricing right now is the reviews are taking a little longer than I expected to come out. This was finished a month ago.

In the next 30 days or so Phison should have the "10K" update finished. When that comes out this product could be competitive with 850 Pro and 850 EVO in 4K random performance. That is what they tell us anyway but we've been waiting on the 10K update for quite a while now.

 

[rohitbaran]

This price better be an introductory price, considering that you can get a Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB SSD for $170 if you look around and that drive is unbeatable for the price as of now.

 

[teknobug]

I have a Kingston HyperX 3K, it's a pretty fast drive but once I got a Samsung 850 EVO I was blown away at the difference and the Samsung is just a much better performer. I also have a Kingston SSDNow V300 and let's just say we should all forget that series ever exists, mine is the original kind before Kingston made them 50% slower but still they're not very good performing SSD's, my first gen Intel SSD (X-25) still performs better than the SSDNow V300 does.

 

[Larry Litmanen]

If SSDs die after 3-4 years what is their future in consumer grade PCs. Regular people who have zero interest in tech will not be able to replace an SSD and boot OS on it.

 

[Glock24]

After the V300 scam, I don't trust Kingston any more. It's a shame, I used to like their products.

 

[Yoshihiro Shimokawa]

So wait, the 960GB model has 1024GB available to the user? That's a typo right?

 

[teknobug]

So wait, the 960GB model has 1024GB available to the user? That's a typo right?

Probably but technically 864GB of 960 is usable.

 

[mapesdhs]

In my current situation I'd go for a drive that gives me good value for money, which in my country, last time I checked, is a SanDisk or a Crucial, not the Samsung. However, your point is quite valid. Let's wait for the firmware upgrade, perhaps Chris might be willing to revisit this review.

It's funny how pricing can bounce around for unknown reasons. A few months ago when building my HTPC, I wanted a decent but not expensive 240GB/256GB SSD. I'd assumed I'd end up getting a SanDisk Extreme II, or maybe an EVO (not Crucial though, never liked their fw management) or Arc 100 (the latter having proven to be reliable), but in the event and to my surprise I found a normal seller offering the SanDisk X300 256GB Enterprise for only 75 UKP which was cheaper than anything else, so I bought one. It runs incredibly well, for AS-SSD (see link below) giving virtually identical 4K and seq. read/write performance as an 850 Pro, losing out mainly for 4K-64Thrd Read/Write. Since then though, it's gone way up in price and no longer competitive with the EVO. This sort of thing happens all the time.

Ian.

PS. Ref: www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/ssdtests.zip

 

[scootchacha]

After the V300 scam, I don't trust Kingston any more. It's a shame, I used to like their products.

Seconded, and their continuing the pattern of responding with excuses has also gotten tiresome.

 

[Epic Sasa]

the 120gb is slower than the others

 

[seinfeld]

Kingston has become far too expensive. and doesnt offer any reason for me to buy their products. Their ram is more expensive then most. and their SSD's arent as fast or as good as the samsung 850 evo. that small drive has a terrible life span 1.1 TB
and the write speeds are lower than samsung 850 evo as well. samsung has just owned the SSd market with 3d V nand, as that brought the price down so much. other companies are now selling an inferior product for the same amount

 

[daglesj]

After the V300 scam, I don't trust Kingston any more. It's a shame, I used to like their products.

Actually for upgrading SATA II equipped machines, the V300 range is excellent as they will push 250MBps all day long and are usually the cheapest SSD you can buy.

I've bought dozens of them and have a lot of very happy customers as a result. A product doesn't always have to be the best to perfectly fit a niche.

 

[teknobug]

After the V300 scam, I don't trust Kingston any more. It's a shame, I used to like their products.

Actually for upgrading SATA II equipped machines, the V300 range is excellent as they will push 250MBps all day long and are usually the cheapest SSD you can buy.

I've bought dozens of them and have a lot of very happy customers as a result. A product doesn't always have to be the best to perfectly fit a niche.

250MBps isn't acceptable for a SSD, my original V300 before Kingston changed it pushes 450-500MBps. You should be giving your customers the Samsung 840/850 EVO or Crucial SSD's which are around the same pricerange.

 

[cliffro]

After the V300 scam, I don't trust Kingston any more. It's a shame, I used to like their products.

Actually for upgrading SATA II equipped machines, the V300 range is excellent as they will push 250MBps all day long and are usually the cheapest SSD you can buy.

I've bought dozens of them and have a lot of very happy customers as a result. A product doesn't always have to be the best to perfectly fit a niche.

250MBps isn't acceptable for a SSD, my original V300 before Kingston changed it pushes 450-500MBps. You should be giving your customers the Samsung 840/850 EVO or Crucial SSD's which are around the same pricerange.

Did you miss the part where he was talking about PC's with SATA II (aka SATA 3Gb/s) An EVO would be wasted potential and money on SATA II. SATA II/3Gb/s' max speed is 300(though not typical)
Sandisk gives an example of SATA III SSD on SATA II

SanDisk Extreme SSD, which supports SATA 6Gb/s interface and when connected to SATA 6Gb/s port, can reach up to 550/520MB/s sequential read and sequential write speed rates respectively. However, when the drive is connected to SATA 3 Gb/s port, it can reach up to 285/275MB/s sequential read and sequential write speed rates respectively

 

[daglesj]

Yeah in reality the highest I've ever seen from a SATA II setup is 260MBps and 250ish is the average. Still fast enough with the low latency of a SSD.

 

[mapesdhs]

250MBps isn't acceptable for a SSD, ...

It was a few years ago, check older reviews, people were gushing at such speeds way back.

Plus, as Cliffro said, for a SATA2-era machine that's a very decent speed to provide the user, but if one can exploit a spare PCIe slot for a newer device then that's cool. I've tried numerous older mbds with SSDs, makes a big difference. Doesn't really matter which model, though I was using a Vertex2E which works nicely. Best speed I've seen with a SATA2 link was a little over 280MB/sec; see my test results.

Ian.

 

[scootchacha]

I've bought dozens of them and have a lot of very happy customers as a result. A product doesn't always have to be the best to perfectly fit a niche.

Kingston applauds you for perpetuating and supporting their dodgy business practices. To preserve your own reputation hopefully your more knowledgeable customers never research the components you supply them.

 

[drkRoss]

UNATCO?

 

[mapesdhs]

scootchacha, why the down vote? I'm baffled. Has anyone else done proper tests to show how modern SSDs behave with older SATA2 mbds? I've done hundreds of tests, precisely because review sites don't tend to provide such info, so I do what I can to fill the gaps.

Kinda weird dude, confused...

Ian.

 

[teknobug]

I missed the SATA2 part or it just evaded my thought when I read the post, in that case yes a SSD is good for an older system. However Kingston V300 should not be on anyone's shopping list, period. I'm lucky to have the original V300 before Kingston changed the NAND.