INTRODUCTION

   Due to all the recent price drops largely thanks to very high levels of NAND flash availability many portable SSD (solid state drives) models of all shapes and sizes have been released lately by both large and small storage media manufacturers. Unfortunately as we've stated numerous times in past reviews it will be long before SSDs can rival the price/capacity performance of HDDs but things are looking better than ever right now especially since certain manufacturers have even started using 3D NAND flash in their USB 3.1 Gen 2 solutions for even higher read & write performance numbers. Kingston's HyperX division is one such manufacturer and today we'll be testing their brand new Savage EXO 480GB USB 3.1 Gen 2 Portable Solid-State Drive.

   HyperX is the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the world’s largest independent memory manufacturer, with the goal of providing gamers, PC builders, and power users with high-performance components. For 15 years, the HyperX mission has been to develop gaming products for gamers – high-speed memory, solid state drives, headsets, keyboards, mice, USB flash drives, and mouse pads – to the gaming community and beyond. The award-winning HyperX brand has carved its name atop the leaderboard by consistently delivering products that deliver superior comfort, aesthetics, performance, and reliability. HyperX gear is the choice of pro gamers, tech enthusiasts, and overclockers worldwide because it meets the most stringent product specifications and is built with best-in-class components. HyperX has shipped over 3 million headsets worldwide.

   As mentioned earlier under the hood of the brand new Savage EXO USB 3.1 Gen 2 Portable SSD (currently available in 480/960GB capacities) HyperX placed Toshiba's BiCS 64L 3D TLC NAND flash which they paired with 512MB LPDDR3 cache and the 88SS1074 quad-channel NAND flash controller by Marvell which features SLC cache (pseudo-SLC), partial power loss protection, active garbage collection, redundant array of independent NAND (RAIN), LDPC error correction code (ECC), adaptive thermal protection, data-path protection, multistep data integrity algorithm and fully supports DevSleep (power save), TRIM, SMART, AES 256-bit hardware encryption, TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (fully compatible with Microsoft's eDrive and EU's GDPR). Design is also one of the things that make the Savage EXO drive stand out since thanks to the M.2 2280 SSD placed inside (HyperX has used the ASM235CM SATA III to USB 3.1 Gen 2 chip) it looks nothing like most portable SSDs out in the market today. Finally HyperX reports an endurance number of 1 million hours MTFB for the Savage EXO Portable SSD and covers it with a 3-year limited warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The drive arrived inside a small white and red box that has a product picture at the front right over the company logo, system compatibility and connectivity type.

System compatibility is also showcased on the left side of the box right above a list with the contents of the bundle.

Another product picture is printed at the rear of the box right over the OS compatibility list and a small opening from where you can see a sticker placed on the drive.

Along with the Savage EXO Portable SSD HyperX also bundles two USB cables (Type-C to Type-C / Type-C to Type-A), sticker, product catalog and a warranty information paper.

THE SAVAGE EXO 480GB

The 56g heavy enclosure of the Savage EXO is made out of aluminum and measures 123.82mm in length, 48.61mm in width and 10.24mm in height.

For size comparison purposes we placed the Savage EXO Portable SSD right next to the T3 and T1 models by Samsung.

The angled forward section aims to make the drive feel aggressive (thus the Savage part).

At the rear we find the USB type-C connector and the activity LED.

Information about the drive such as its part and serial numbers and barcodes are located on a small sticker placed on the belly of the enclosure (same sticker you can see from the rear of the box).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Solid state drives are basically the same as USB flash drives and so we’re using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record achieved read & write performance numbers in our charts*. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Pro (Read / Write speeds), AIDA 64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear Read / Random Read speeds), Crystal Disk Mark x64 (100MB-1000MB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts (0 = we were unable to complete that test).

   All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro installation on a HyperX Predator 480GB PCIe SSD with all updates installed up to the 19th of December 2018. As always for comparison purposes in the charts you will also find many other flash drivers which have been tested using the same exact test bench as the one in this review (we really can't keep every flash drive we get forever and also even if we could test them all again and again would simply not be possible).

* Since November 2018 we started new charts only for portable solid state drives.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

CONCLUSION

   The Savage EXO may be the very first portable drive by HyperX but at the same time it’s also the fastest external drive currently by Kingston and that says a lot. Of course our charts place the Bolt B80 by Silicon Power in the lead and although some of you (i too was surprised by the results) may not have expected that let’s not forget that both drives are very fast USB 3.1 Gen 2 models (do keep in mind that you need a USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatible system to squeeze every bit of available performance) and both are also cooled by their aluminum housings. Unfortunately our charts still don’t have many portable SSD models in them but we’ve reached out to many manufacturers in order to get our hands to as many as possible (still although we’re currently testing 3 more models we can’t hope to test every single one in the market).

   With a current price tag set at USD122.06 inside the USA (Amazon) and 124Euros inside the EU (Amazon UK) the Savage EXO 480GB USB 3.1 Gen 2 Portable SSD by HyperX features a excellent price/capacity ratio which should be more than enough for most people to overlook that it’s not the fastest model out in the market currently. Ontop of that add the aluminum enclosure, two bundled USB cables and the 3 year limited warranty and the brand new HyperX Savage EXO 480GB Portable SSD is certainly worth our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (Aluminum Enclosure)
- Very Good Performance
- Just 10.24mm Thick And 48.61mm Wide
- 3 Years Warranty
- USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C Connector
- Type C and Type A USB Cables
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Only Available In 480/960GB Capacities