Kingston XS1000 (2 TB) External SSD Review

In for review is the Kingston XS1000. This is an external SSD, featuring a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface (10 Gbps) in a sleek and pocketable form factor. Ours is the 2 TB variant (SXS1000/2000G) which is priced at $108 USD and about ₱7599 PHP locally.

The Kingston XS1000 follows the success of the XS2000 in a more affordable package as per capacity. It comes with speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s read and 1,000 MB/s write along with a 5 year limited warranty.

Disclosure: Kingston sent the XS1000 for the purpose of this review. As usual, the company did not ask me to say anything particular about it.

Technical Specifications

Storage
Capacity	2 TB
Cache	N/A
Flash Controller	SMI 2320
Flash Memory	3D NAND
Form Factor	Compact
Interface	USB 3.2 Gen2
Sequential Read	1,050 MB/s
Sequential Write	1,000 MB/s
Random 4 KB Read	N/A
Random 4 KB Write	N/A
Endurance
MTBF	N/A
TBW	N/A
Dimensions
Length	69.54 mm
Width	32.58 mm
Height	13.5 mm
Weight	28.7 grams

Packaging and Accessories

The XS1000 comes in a simple and rather dinky packaging.

Scope of delivery are as follows:

• Kingston XS1000
• USB Type-A to Type-C Cable

While we received a Type-C to Type-C cable for testing, I wish Kingston just included that kind of cable along with a Type-A adapter as a part of the official accessories. With that in mind, it would be better to include a flat or a more flexible cable as well.

Design, Build and Connectivity

The Kingston XS1000 is a small rectangular portable SSD. It weighs in at just under 30 grams and is no larger than three SD cards lined-up next to each other – Z-height excluded.

As expected, the bottom part of the SSD houses the labels. Nothing much to see here but I appreciate Kingston’s decision to use aluminum for both the top and bottom shells. This made the XS1000 substantial or rather premium to hold considering its weight. By design, it should also aid thermals.

Connectivity is courtesy of a single USB Type-C port. Next to it is the status LED. Pretty basic stuff and I’m all in for it.

Throughput

At CrystalDiskMark, the Kingston XS1000 breached its specified sequential read speeds at 1053 MB/s measured. The sequential write speed on the other hand is trailing by a small margin and is nothing to worry about.

AS SSD results are less forgiving compared to CrystalDiskMark. Here, we got 987 MB/s read and 924 MB/s write speeds.

IOPS

Kingston never disclosed the IOPS performance of the XS1000. That said, we saw about 40K IOPS for the read and 35K IOPS for the write at CrystalDiskMark’s RND4KQ32T16 benchmark.

AS SSD is a little different though, featuring higher IOPS results over the former for the both read and write at its 4K-64Thrd benchmark.

Access Time

Now as far as access time goes, the XS1000 is pretty quick – sans the Seq 4MB results. Such a performance is expected for an SSD.

File Copy

File copy performance is good as far as AS SSD’s benchmark results are concerned. This kind of performance on the synthetics also checks out with an actual file copy test.

Above translates to 1.51, 7.37 and 3.01 seconds of file copy duration. Reasonable enough for what the XS1000 offers to the table.

Compression

Continuing to the compression benchmarks, the XS1000 comes with an average compression speed of 987 MB/s read and 941 MB/s write.

Cache

Now what I like about the XS1000 is its write cache. We only added the results up until 256 GB but it is definitely consistent until the benchmark ends.

Temperature

Thermal output is reasonable. The storage device has an average idle temperature of 35.07 °C and an average of 48 °C at load. Not the coolest I’ve seen but definitely not toasty either.

Final Thoughts

The Kingston XS1000 in its 2 TB configuration is a good external storage solution for those who are looking for a balance between capacity, performance and portability – all in an enticing price.

The XS1000 is also the smallest external SSD I have tested, which means a lot considering I own a bunch of M.2 2280 SSDs slapped into their own portable enclosures. For those who are familiar with the form factor, they are portable enough but not really what I could say pocketable – more so if we also consider the amount of designs from various manufacturers.

At $66 and $108 USD international for the 1 TB and 2 TB variants, the XS1000 is a good option over most competing products and even its faster brother, the XS2000 – if tight budget is a real issue.

Now like many products made outside the country, the XS1000 comes with a higher local MSRP. I normally shrug at such but considering the competing product’s local prices, this is a huge win for Kingston and for the consumers as well. That is, if you do not have access nor against ordering products outside the country.

Local warranty is also something you have to consider and on that note, Kingston got yours covered in the form of a 5 year limited warranty.