Kingston HyperX SSD Review

By George Harding

SSD’s are a wonderful addition to the hardware library of storage devices. They are small, have no moving parts and are much faster than other storage media. On the down side, they are more expensive than other media and storage sizes are smaller than what is easily available in other media.

The speed advantage is one that can be capitalized on to load one’s operating system faster. You can use your hard drive to hold and access your applications and data, or you can use the SSD for some applications, those that take longer to load.

I received a very nice 240 GB unit for review. I had tried a couple of other SSDs, but had problems of one sort or another with them. The Kingston unit comes complete with what you need to install it in either your desktop or your laptop.

The box contains the SSD, a nifty screwdriver suitable for either Phillips or slotted screw heads, a drive enclosure, a 3.5” mounting bracket,  a USB cable, a SATA drive cable and a CD-ROM with instructions and a version of Acronis software.

The procedure for a desktop is to clone your hard drive to the SSD with the Acronis software. Then you reboot from the SSD. The hard drive can be used as storage for data and applications, as usual. Another approach is to install operating system software to the SSD and boot from it.

For a laptop, the procedure is somewhat different. You first remove the internal hard drive and install in its place the SSD. The internal hard drive is mounted in the supplied drive enclosure and attached to the laptop with the USB cable. You clone the hard drive as before.

I had a few difficulties with these installations. First, I tried the desktop approach, but the Acronis software would not clone the hard disk to the SSD. The latter was grayed out in the destination choices, so I took the alternate approach and loaded Windows 8 to the SSD and was able to boot to it.

In the case of the laptop, I was not easily able to remove the internal hard drive, so I gave up on that approach.

Kingston’s Tech Support will be helping to solve my difficulties – more later.

The HyperX is a well-put-together kit and should be usable by most anyone. The instructions are very clear, with pictures each step of the way. The Acronis software is reliable.

www.kiingston.com               
Price $275 MSRP, $203 at Amazon