We recently upgraded a personal laptop to make it a bit more of a beast. This particular upgrade involved replacing a dying hard drive with a solid state drive (SSD), which just so happens to be the drive in this review. In this Kingston HyperX Fury SSD 120GB Review we’ll show you how this SSD performed for us.
Name: HyperX Fury SSD (120GB)
Available From: Amazon.com
Price: Click to view on Amazon.com
Manufacturer: Kingston
Overview: Kingston HyperX Fury SSD 120GB
The HyperX Fury SSD is Kingston’s entry-level high-performance SATA3 solid state drive which is specifically designed to be priced at an affordable level. This 2.5″ form factor solid state drive has a slim 7mm thickness to allow it to fit into ultrabooks. The 120GB size covered in this review is the smallest size available (the other size offering is 240GB).
Pros
- Up to 500MB/s read/write speed
- 3 year warranty
- Free technical support
- Slim – 7mm thickness design
Cons
- Older model (Mid 2014 release)
- Limited size offerings (120GB or 240GB only)
- No 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter plate included
Performance
We tested the drives performance using CrystalDiskMark, a disk benchmarking tool which runs a series of synthetic stress tests.
Firstly we’ll take a look at the sequential read and write tests, denoted by “Seq” in the tests below. You’ll notice that the drive achieved a 488MB/s read speed which is great but only a 125MB/s write speed. The reason for the slower write speeds is due to CrystalDiskMark performing these tests with data that cannot be compressed which is a weakness of this particular drive. Kingston actually state in their specifications (listed below) that the drive is capable of 120MB/s incompressible write speeds which we’ve exceeded in our test. In some circumstances the drive will be able to achieve a much higher write speed – potentially up to the claimed 500MB/s with large amounts of compressible data.
The second group of tests are the 4K Random read and write denoted by “4K” in the image above. These tests are much harder on a disk as they simulate reading and writing 4KB chunks of data from random places on the drive. Since the data is not in a sequential order it takes longer for the drive to locate the requested information so slower speeds are normal in this area. This drive does a reasonably good job on the 4K random writes but does trail some of the higher priced drives in the 4K random reads.
For a low cost drive, the Kingston HyperX Fury keeps up with some of the premium drives in the sequential read and random 4K write tests but trails behind in the sequential write and random 4K read tests. If you’re looking at a budget SSD to upgrade to from an on spinning HDD, you’ll definitely see a huge improvement.
Check out the user reviews on Amazon >>
Who Is It For?
HyperX is the brand name given to the high performance division of Kingston products, while their Fury product line represents the entry-level products into the HyperX range. In short, this means those looking at Fury series products are getting a marginally high-performance product for a reasonable price point.
This makes the HyperX Fury SSD an excellent contender for those who might be looking to make the shift from traditional hard disk drives (HDD) to solid state. If you’re transitioning from a traditional hard drive, the speed increase will be very noticeable, and you’ll love this SSD. In my case, I was looking to upgrade a work laptop with a poorly performing HDD that was starting to show the signs of being on it’s way out.
Cost
Kingston HyperX Fury SSDs are one of the decent low-cost SSDs out there, and what we like about these is that you know you’re still getting a quality product at an affordable price.
The HyperX Fury series, particularly the 120GB offering, is an affordable option into the world of solid state drives – and once you go solid state, you won’t look back. Apart from the very noticeable speed increase, you’ll enjoy less noise, more reliability, and a longer lifespan. Faster read and write times give exceptional responsiveness.
Specifications And Features
Model Number: SHFS37A/120G
Size: 120GB
Controller: Sandforce SF-2281 controller
Flash: Multi-level cell (MLC)
Dimensions: 2.75″ x 3.94″ x 0.28″ (69.8mm x 100.1mm x 7mm). Comes with an adaptor plate to fit into 0.35″ (9mm) thickness drive slots.
Form Factor: 2.5″
Weight: 3.18oz (90.03g)
Interface: SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s), backwards compatable to SATA 2.0
Power Consumption: 0.31W idle, 0.35W avg, 1.65W max (read), 2.76W max (write)
Life Expectancy: 1 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF)
Total Bytes Written (TBW): 354TB 2.75 drive writes per day
Baseline Performance
All Capacities: 500MB/s read and 500MB/s write
Incompressible data transfer: (AS-SSD and CrystalDiskMark) 420MB/s read and 120MB/s write
Maximum 4k read/write: Up to 84,000 (read) and up to 52,000 (write) IOPS
Random 4k read/write: Up to 11,500 (read) and up to 52,000 (write) IOPS
Storage Bandwidth: (PCMark 8) 140MB/s
Full Specifications can be found on Kingston’s HyperX SSD datasheet.
Manufacturer Warranties
Kingston HyperX SSDs come with a three year warranty and free manufacturer technical support through Kingston.
Final Opinion of the HyperX Fury SSD
If you’re looking for your first SSD to transition from traditional hard disk drives, this SSD will do exactly what you want it to. It’s speedy performance at an affordable price, backed by a well-known manufacturer and a three-year warranty.
Name: HyperX Fury SSD (120GB)
Available From: Amazon.com
Price: Click to view on Amazon.com
Manufacturer: Kingston
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