By: Ben Joubert
December 1, 2023
When I was a bit younger and online gaming was not yet as popular as it was today, one of my favorite weekend activities was getting a group of friends together and having a LAN party. We used to cram a whole bunch of desktop PCs into a room too small for all of us. As we were setting up, we would discuss the games we would play or the strategies we would attempt. Setting up everyone to ensure everything would run smoothly, however, always took quite a bit of troubleshooting. Without fail, some sort of issue would arise requiring precious time to be spent on figuring out why one person was connected while another was not. Another issue would come up when someone did not have the game installed. One required and extremely handy tool at the time was a small flash drive. Often this would be the fastest way for us to transfer required files or deal with similar problems. Since those days, I have kept a small flash drive in my backpack to deal with whatever comes up. This has saved me so much time over the years. But nowadays, with how small external solid state drives have become, it feels almost insulting to carry a small capacity flash drive. Today, we are covering the Kingston XS1000, which boasts 2TB of storage in an immensely small form factor. Advertised as a small form factor file backup, will it easily fulfill the tasks of a flash drive or be a bit overkill? Let us read on to find out!
The Kingston XS1000 2TB arrived in a rather small brown box. It was shipped via FedEx International Ground all the way here to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The box was light and had no damage to the exterior, which bodes well for how safe the internals are. When moving the box around, there was little movement of the drive inside, meaning it had been packaged well.
After opening the shipping box, I was met with some packaging materials to keep the SSD from bouncing around. The Kingston XS1000 2TB has a small retail box featuring the classic Kingston white and red colors. There is little else around the retail box. Some further information is highlighted on the back to bring to the forefront the most important features of the SSD. One of the main selling points is the portability of the drive. The image on the front of the SSD is actual size, so you can quickly get a good sense of its dimensions.
Before we move on, here are the specifications as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Specifications
Interface: USB 3.2 Gen 2
Speed: Up to 1,050MB/s read, 1,000MB/s write
Capacity: 2TB
Dimensions: 69.54 x 32.58 x 13.5mm
Weight: 28.7g
Casing Material: Metal + Plastic
Operating temperature: 0°C~40°C
Storage temperature: -20°C~85°C
Warranty/Support: Limited 5-year warranty with free technical support
Compatible with: Windows® 11, 10, macOS (v.10.15.x +), Linux (v. 4.4.x +), Chrome OS™
When it comes to opening up the retail box, there is little to be found for the Kingston XS1000 2TB. Inside, we only found the drive itself, a USB cable, and a small quick start manual. Not much else is required for the SSD and since it is so small, not much further protection is needed to keep the drive safe from bumps.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Conclusion
