Kingston external SSD drives are known for their portable designs and high-speed performance. Over a year ago, we had the opportunity to review Kingston’s XS2000 high-end external SSD drive. And now, we got a chance to try out the XS1000, a cut-down version of the XS2000, but still with good transfer speeds. Here are our thoughts about the new drive.
The Kingston XS1000 is designed to be a portable and pocket-friendly external storage solution, that shares a similar design as the higher-end XS2000. The device features a dimension of 69.54 x 32.58 x 13.5mm, and the drive weighs around 28.7g.
The casing of the drive is made of both metal and plastic. There is also a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 interface for connectivity and a blue LED indicator next to the port. The XS1000 also comes with a short black USB-C to USB-A cable.
While the XS2000 external SSD features a removable rubber sleeve, Kingston did not include the same for the XS1000 drive, which is a bit of a disappointment. We should also note that Kingston only offers the XS1000 in a black color, and the XS2000 in a silver color casing with a rubber sleeve. So you are out of options when it comes to colors for both drives.
To test the performance, we tried the XS1000 on our testbed, which included components such as the AMD Ryzen 7700X processor, Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 memory, ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard, XFX 1000W PSW, XFX Radeon 5700XT GPU, and more. Kingston mentions that with the USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, the XS1000 external SSD is capable of speeds up to 1050 MB/s read and 1000 MB/s write data transfers. On the contrary, the Kingston XS2000 has a faster USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, with 2000 MB/s read and write speeds.
We tested the drive with benchmark apps such as CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD. From our CrystalDiskMark benchmark scores, the drive performed a read speed of 1082.46 MB/s read speed, and 983.84 MB/s write speeds for sequential 1M Q8T1 readings. For RND4K Q1T1 readings, we got 29.04 MB/s read speeds and 79.19 MB/s write speeds. With AS SSD, the speed performances were slightly lower, hitting 1014.87 MB/s read speeds and 870.48 MB/s write speeds for sequential readings.
We also ran a manual file test, where we copied a 100GB/s file, with an average of 750MB/s.
Verdict
For those looking for an affordable external SSD solution that features a portable design and high-speed transfers, the Kingston XS1000 is a good choice to consider. The drive is pocketable and lightweight in design, with a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 interface on its side. The drive weighs about 28.7g.
The drive comes in a black casing made of both metal and plastic. However, it does not feature a protective rubber sleeve like the high-end Kingston XS2000 external SSD. The Kingston XS1000 is capable of speeds up to 1050 MB/s read and 1000 MB/s write data transfers, which is almost half of what the Kingston XS2000 can do. Kingston also offers the XS1000 in 1TB and 2TB capacities.
