Published: July 1, 2013 | Source: Kingston | Author: Bryan Waters

Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator 512GB Review

Conclusion

Usually when writing our conclusions we have an array of things we can compare something to. We take into account build-quality, performance, pricing and what the possible alternatives are that you could buy. After all, times are hard, money is tight, and when you’re creating a shopping list for a particular task if you can have two things that perform identically but one is half the price of the other, it affects how you look at them.

With the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator, there is nothing at all to compare it to. Certainly it’s a USB stick, and so one would assume that those are an easy comparison. But when we see how blisteringly fast the DT HyperX is, any other USB stick is so slow that it would be akin to comparing a Blackpool Donkey to Secretariat. Also your average thumb drive is usually found wallowing in the 16GB end of the market, rather than the titanic 512GB of the Kingston. Even most SSDs are around 256GB rather than 512GB. However, the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator is not as fast as a SATA 6GBs SSD drive and nor would we expect it to be, thanks to the limits of the USB 3.0 format.

So it’s in a class of one.

Firstly you have the speed of a mid-range SSD drive. In our testing it regularly hit the manufacturers claimed speeds, and sometimes passed them. If you felt that your USB 3.0 thumb drive was fast, the Kingston makes it look like going from an Optical drive to a SATA3 SSD. We could transfer a 1.2GB video file to it in 11.2 seconds, and from the Kingston DT HyperX to another drive in 4.4 seconds. To put that in perspective it took 38.7 seconds to write and 35.3 seconds to read it off of our Lexar Jump Drive.

Secondly is the sheer capacity. 512GB is a lot, which sounds obvious but in comparison to the limits usually applied it frees you up to do all sorts of cool things with it. Finally, the portability. Because it is still a USB stick, albeit the Rolls Royce of USB sticks, you can put it in any pocket at all. Even the silly money pocket you get on jeans, or the space for a pocket watch in your three-piece suit. The build quality is exceptional. The casing is extremely robust and it would take some serious deliberate effort to damage it at all, much less render it broken.

It is a teensy bit pricey though. Actually by any measure at all, it’s expensive. You could buy a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro for about Â£380, which makes the Â£640 price-tag on the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator as big as its name. Compared to an SSD it’s expensive and slow. Compared to a USB stick it’s blisteringly quick and tolerably priced. Big leaps in technology always come with an early-adopter price-tag, and the DT HyperX falls into that category.

But that is all somewhat missing the point. You’re not buying this because of how it compares to other items. You’re buying it because you have a very specific set of demands and this is the only product on the market that combines the capacity, speed, and portability. It works on anything you can plug a USB stick into which cannot be said (in console and television terms) of anything similar fast/large device. You could fit four people and some shopping into both a Ford Focus and a Bentley. You can play Chopsticks on both a Casio and a Steinway.

If money were no object we’d give it a Gold without a beat. It’s fast, easily portable and large it’s nearly perfect for putting your Steam collection onto and taking your whole game collection with you wherever you go. We know that only a very select band of people need what the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator has to offer, but if you do, nothing else comes close. For that reason we’re going to award it our OC3D Performance Award.

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