Kingston XS2000
A blisteringly fast external SSD when connected to the right interface, but there are reasons to hold on for USB 4
PRICE 1TB, £139 (£167 inc VAT) from box.co.uk
The Kingston XS2000 has been billed as the world’s fastest native USB SSD, but the keyword here is “native”. This will only hold true over a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface, which provides a theoretical bandwidth of 20Gbits/sec (twice that of USB 3.2 Gen 2). The spectre hanging over it is USB 4: this is on the verge of going mainstream and provides 40Gbits/sec bandwidth.
An industry insider candidly told us that he thinks that portable Gen 2x2 drives are “a rather niche market that’s better suited for players who are already heavily invested in storage or flash technologies. It also makes more sense for desktop PCs rather than notebooks.” That might explain why Samsung and Crucial have yet to
launch portable USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 products.
With that caveat in place, there’s much to like about this drive. When fitted with the rubber sleeve that Kingston provides, it’s waterresistant and shockproof to IP55 standards, and it comes with an industry-leading five-year warranty. It’s also affordable. As mentioned in the Seagate review above, it’s cheaper than that drive in two of the three available configurations (500GB, 1TB and 2TB). Its prices compare well to other portable SSDs on the market, too, most of which are bulkier.
Removing the rubber sleeve exposes the bare body of the drive, its chassis a mix of plastic and metal. This makes it light (29g), small (67 x 31 x 13mm) and warm when under load. Other than a status LED and the usual stickers and logos, there’s not much else to say.
The device uses the SM2320, a native USB 3.2 Silicon Motion controller, paired with 3D TLC NAND chips. Despite a lack of DRAM (which can help in sustained transfer tests), the XS2000 delivered a peak of 1,962MB/sec in CrystalDiskMark’s sequential read tests, almost twice that of the LaCie, and 1,782MB/sec for writes. However, it’s crucial to restate that you will need a compatible port to see that advantage: when I tested the drive using a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, its results were 1,062MB/sec for reads and 999MB/sec for writes.
Note that there’s no bundled software nor any data-recovery services. Instead, the XS2000 is a low-cost way of grabbing what will most likely be a fast drive on your current system and an even faster one when your laptop or PC supports USB 4, which, unlike Thunderbolt 4, has the significant advantage of being fully compatible with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.
SPECIFICATIONS
1TB capacity USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 stated 2,000MB/sec read and write speeds USB-C cable compatible with most macOS and Windows systems 67 x 31 x 13mm (WDH) 29g 5yr warranty