I received a Kingston DataTraveler HyperX-3.0 64GB USB-3.0 Memory stick for Christmas. That’s one very nice thing about Christmas, if one is fortunate then one can receive gifts they really don’t need, but are very nice toys none-the-less.
I was fortunate this Christmas, and many thanks to my wife :
http://thumbnails58.imagebam.com/16703/bf8990167025484.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/bf8990167025484)
I’ve been ‘lusting’ after getting fast USB-3.0 memory stick for some time, and this Kingston DataTraveler HyperX-3.0 64GB USB Memory stick is supposedly one of the fastest.
It comes in 3-flavours:
- 64 GB capacity version
- 128 GB capacity version
- 256 GB capacity version
with the price increasing more than linearly with the larger the capacity. Even the 64GB version is > 100 Euros (after 19% Value Added Tax (VAT)) so its not something one would nominally purchase, given how in-expensive USB-3.0 external hard drives are. For that price one can likely obtain a small 1 TB hard drive.
Still, a memory stick is small, and light, and fits in a pocket/purse with room to spare. And this Kingston is no exception for being small and light.
Here is pix with cover on:
http://thumbnails38.imagebam.com/16703/63c5b9167025493.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/63c5b9167025493)
I confess I was skeptical as to the claimed speeds on the packaging, so I plugged it into my openSUSE-11.4 desktop PC to give it a try.
First let me say that my experience with my desktop PC hardware is I don’t get the very fast USB-2.0 nor USB-3.0 speeds that some users claim/benchmark no matter what OS I try. In fact, my USB-3.0 speeds with an Asus U3S6 USB-3.0 PCI-e card (in my Asus PST Deluxe V2 motherboard) are closer to very fast USB-2.0 speeds as opposed to USB-3.0. I read speculation somewhere on the web that the Asus PST Deluxe V2 motherboard is not so good for obtaining USB-3.0 speeds with its PCI-e bus so it may not be the PCI-e card’s fault. I note this is not just openSUSE but also windowsXP (with the USB-3.0 drivers) that does not see USB-3.0 speeds.
So I note the packaging on the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX USB.0 claims this:
http://thumbnails46.imagebam.com/16703/45b375167025490.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/45b375167025490)
So while running openSUSE-11.4, I plugged the USB-3.0 stick into a USB-2.0 port on my PC, and copied a 600 Mbyte file by a drag and drop with Dolphin (and I also have the view that Dolphin is not the best file manager for high speeds).
I obtained speeds of only ~ 15 MB/sec to copy on to that USB-3.0 stick (where 30MB/sec is claimed possible). This is in comparison to speeds of 5.5 MB/sec that I typically get with one of my faster USB 2.0 memory sticks. so 15 MB/sec is fast, but not the 30MB/sec on the packaging.
I then unmounted the stick, and plugged it into a USB-3.0 port on my Asus U3S6 USB-3.0 PCI-e card. And a copied a 1.5 GB file onto the memory stick. This time I saw speeds of only ~30 MB/sec (instead of the claimed 135 MB/sec). But I also note 30 MB/sec is the same sort of speeds I have experienced with a USB-3.0 external hard drive. So IMHO the fault lies not with the memory stick, but with my PC hardware.
I also noted (above) that a fast USB-2.0 memory stick gives speeds in the order of 5.5 MB/sec using same USB-2.0 port and also the same speeds in the order of 5.0 MB/sec using the same USB-3.0 port.
So without question the Kingston HyperX is faster with my hardware. Its just not as fast as it could be with better hardware.
Still, despite not breaking any speed records, I’m very happy with this new toy.
Here is a pix with cover off :
http://thumbnails41.imagebam.com/16703/ad6325167025495.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/ad6325167025495)
The lsusb of this device is this:
Bus 009 Device 007: ID 0951:162b Kingston Technology
and “fdisk -l” see’s the USB stick as this:
Disk /dev/sdb: 64.1 GB, 64055410688 bytes
53 heads, 53 sectors/track, 44538 cylinders, total 125108224 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 8064 125108223 62550080 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
and when mounted, from ‘df -Th’ the following:
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 vfat 60G 128K 60G 1% /media/KINGSTON
I’m tempted to reformat this 64 GB memory stick from VFAT to NTFS. I confess I’ve never formatted a memory stick as NTFS before and I’m not clear what that might do to the memory stick’s compatibility with the average PC.