Introduction

Kingston is the world number one supplier of DDR2 memory to customers, if you have an OEM laptop or desktop, chances are that you got Kingston memory inside.

Their extensive experience with memory modules serves them well when designed new products and today we test their latest none memory module, which is still related to memory products: an USB stick.

The Kingston DataTraveler was first introduced a while ago with different sizes available (1/2/4Gb), they have now updated the capacity and the speed of the device and called it the DataTraveler HyperX. The same tag used for the enthusiast memory modules. Can it live up to its name?



The retail packaging has little info on the front, but what’s there to be seen is straight to the point, you get a free trail code for World of Warcraft on the USB stick, you can see that the size is 4Gb and internal testing by Kingston has the drive performing 20Mb/s write and 30Mb/s read speed. You also get 5 year warranty for this USB stick. The rear of the package details system compatibility and lists the features in multiple languages.

Specifications

From their product page we gathered the following details on the DT HyperX:

Capacities – 2GB, 4GB, 8GB

Dimensions – 2.76 x 0.88 x 0.44 (70.0mm x 22.4mm x 11.3mm)

Fast – data transfer rates of up to 30MB/sec. read and 20MB/sec. write

Enhanced for Windows ReadyBoost on Vista-based systems (USB 2.0 required)

Operating Temperature – 32° to 140° F (0° to 60° C)

Storage Temperature – -4° to 185° F (-20° to 85° C)

Guaranteed – five-year warranty

Let’s take a closer look at the stick ->

Looks

The DT HyperX features Kingston company colors black and blue, inside the retail packaging you’ll find the USB stick and a small carrying cord. A closer look at the USB stick reveals that the black part is made of hard rubber, the blue is brushed aluminium where Kingston logo is painted on.



The other side of the drive reveals a small LED which flashes when you have it plugged in a free USB port and there is read/write activity. The USB connector is hidden inside the drive which is a nice feature as it protects the connector from damage during transport.



A size comparison next to a set of keys, the Kingston DT is larger than your average USB stick as the USB connector is hidden inside the drive and you get a nice rubber padding for protection:



Once hooked up to your system, depending on the file system you will get up total free size close to 4Gb, but not quite. Under Windows XP SP2 and formatted FAT32 the size was 3813Mb.



Wear

We left the Kingston DT HyperX hooked up the key ring for a good week and travelled around the country; the previous USB stick who was hooked on the key ring was an old 512Mb Sandisk Cruzer Mini 512Mb; the original came with three different colored caps:



The drive still works but surely has a battered look, and all three caps got lost, they didn't stick all that well to the USB connector.



While the Kingston drive did not went through several years of usage, after a good week there were a few signs of wear:



The Kingston logo and blue color paint on the aluminium cover is coming off; the small button used to slide the USB connector in/out shows minimal wear. Overall the drive is sturdy and will not break easily.

Let’s take a look at the performance ->

Test Setup and Comparison Material

The Kingston DT HyperX USB stick was compared to:

• Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 4gb (photo)
  
• Sandisk Cruzer Mini 512Mb (photo)

The following test setup was used with Windows XP SP2 installed; we used ATTO HDD Benchmark v2.34 and HDTach 3.0 to measure performance:

Intel Test Setup
CPU	Intel Core 2 E6400 @ 2.8Ghz (from CSMSA)
Cooling	Coolermaster Hyper TX
Mainboard	Intel 975X Bad Axe (Modded by Piotke)
Memory	2 * 1Gb PC6400 OCZ
Other	XFX Geforce 8800 GTX Coolermaster Real Power M520 520W PSU 2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptor SATA HDD

Performance



HDTach shows very noticeable lower access time for the Kingston DT HyperX USB stick, the older Sandisk comes close to 10ms.



Burst and Average read speed in HDTach is on par with the claims made by Kingston, the drive easily surpasses 30Mb/s. Up to 3 times better than the older competition.

ATTO HDD Benchmark allows you to test the performance of a storage media by measuring the time it takes to read or write a file of 256Mb; the difference with other HDD benchmark is that ATTO will read/write that data file in different size chunks, going from 0.5Kb to 8192Kb. In our test we used 4kb to 8912Kb setting.

The smaller transfer sizes are applicable for overall Windows operation like Page File actions (~4kb) and small file transfers (.inf , .ini, .dll files). Larger 100Mb+ files are transferred in much larger chunks. Normally you can expect that hard drives do rather well with small chunks, better than SSD in any case, once the file transfer size increases performance will go up for SSD/HDD and USB sticks.

If you want to run an applications straight of your USB stick, high performance at small transfer size is important. If you plan to use it primarily to transfer large files, file transfer speed at chunks of 512Kb are more important.

Let’s see how these three USB sticks did in the READ test:


At around 64Kb file chunks the performance for all USB sticks flattens out and reflects the performance numbers seen by HDTach Read test. At smaller file transfer chunks the performance drops quickly and the new Kingston DT HyperX barely manages to stay in the lead at 4Kb.



The write test reflects the read test in that aspect that at 64Kb the performance line flattens for all the contestants, it is at the lower size chunks that a difference can be seen. The old Sandisk Cruzer Mini comes out on top here with quite a margin. The Kingston sticks don’t handle write operations very well at lower file chunks and at ~500Kb/s at 4Kb can be called very slow.

Conclusive Thoughts

Kingston DT HyperX is a quick USB drive for larger file transfers, music and video files, documents and similar operations. It’s able to surpass the mentioned performance of 20Mb/s write and 30Mb/s read speed in our tests. For very small files the flash memory interface is not optimal, the Kingston DT HyperX is not different in that aspect, scoring low in the write test at 4kb file size.

The drive design is well thought out for the most part, with hard rubber to keep it from slipping; the USB connector is nicely hidden inside the enclosure and can be slid out easily. The only downside we noticed was the aluminum blue cover which scratches easily, the drive will loose its aesthetical appeal over time.

Starting at €55 / $50 it’s certainly pricier than your average off the shelve 4Gb USB stick which can be had for €10~20. The none-HyperX DataTraveler 4Gb costs about ~€17; but it’s noticeably slower throughout the performance benchmarks.

If you’re looking for a fast and rugged USB stick the Kingston DT HyperX will make a fine choice if you can find it at a sharp price.




Kingston DT HyperX 4Gb
+ High Read/Write Performance
+ USB connector slides inside housing when not used
+ Sturdy design
- Higher price premium for the extra performance
- Write speeds for small transfer size (chunks) <64kb is low

We thank Madeleine and Kingston for making this review possible. Check back soon for more USB stick coverage!