Review of Kingston HyperX 3K 120G SSD model SH103S3/120G

Review of Kingston HyperX 3K 120G SSD model SH103S3/120G
bluetooth 3 Aug 2012

Kingston, a renown brand in the industry is always giving the best to it’s customers. Although they might not be the first to market SSDs featuring the SandForce controller, it’s entry has definitely brought down the price of SSD to mainstream users.

Featuring the 2nd generation SandForce SF-2281 controller, the high-speed SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) performance and blazing fast random and sequential read/write speeds. SandForce DuraClass™ technology provides the latest data integrity protection for ultimate endurance over the entire life of the drive.

If you are wondering why Kingston choose a model name 3K, the reason is because it is rated at 3 thousand  program/erase cycle. Effectively that would give it a 8.2 yrs life span. The standard HyperX drive ships with 5K 25nm Intel MLC NAND, while the HyperX 3K ships with 3K 25nm Intel MLC NAND.

Before we go into benchmarks, let’s take a look at the package :

The package consists of the manual, the SSD, a mounting bracket with screws.

Features
SandForce controller technology
High-speed SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s) transfer speeds
Advanced Wear-Leveling Technology
User-Configurable Over Provisioning4
Performance — incredible speeds for enhanced productivity
Reliable — much less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
Shock-Proof — dropping your notebook no longer means losing your data
Cool & Quiet — runs silent and with no moving mechanical parts to generate heat
Innovative — uses NAND Flash memory components
Supports TRIM — enhances device wear leveling by eliminating merge operation for all deleted data blocks
Supports S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology)
Guaranteed — three-year warranty, free technical support and legendary Kingston reliability.