Portable SSDs continue to trickle onto the market today with the launch of Kingston's HyperX Max 3.0. Being a solid-state drive and all, the HyperX boasts some impressive speeds. In fact, Hexus says the HyperX is basically a Kingston SSDNow V+ repackaged with an external casing and USB 3.0 connectivity. Kingston cites maximum read and write rates of 195MB/s and 160MB/s when used with USB 3.0, or about 1 minute 12 seconds to transfer a 10GB movie file.
Those figures seem to hold up in Hexus' benchmarks. During testing, the HyperX Max 3.0 transferred a single 8GB file in 50/46 seconds (read/write) when using USB 3.0. By comparison, it took about 4 minutes to perform the same actions when using USB 2.0. A similar speed differential is seen in the read/writes of a 5.5GB mixed file transfer, and Hexus mentioned that Kingston's new drive is the quickest portable storage solution they've ever tested.
The HyperX Max 3.0 measures 2.89 x 4.67 x 0.47 inches, which is only a bit larger than 2.5-inch SSDs without an enclosure. Kingston is preparing models in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities, which are priced at £125, £220 and £440 (roughly equivalent to $200, $350 and $700). All capacities are expected to ship sometime soon and drives are backed by a three-year warranty as well as 24/7 service – you know, in case you can't find your USB port.