The Bottom Line
Introduction & Drive Details
Kingston has what we've deemed the world's best performing native USB portable SSD. Really if we want to get down to brass tacks, we consider Kingston's XS2000 overall the best portable SSD on the market. We prefer it over the rest for a few reasons. It is imminently compatible due to its bridgeless native USB interface. It just works no matter what you plug it into. Phones, Macs, consoles, PCs, anything with a USB 2 or better port. Type-C, Type-A, all of it.
Additionally, we love its compact nature and lightweight; indeed, the most compact USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 capable portable storage device we've had come through the lab. Perfect fit for your pocket, and with the included rubber sock, it's not going to slip away unnoticed or get damaged if dropped accidentally.
Kingston's portable masterpiece is available in three capacities, 500GB, 1TB & 2TB. The XS2000 interfaces at speeds exceeding 2,000 MB/s via USB 3.2 Gen2 x2. Kingston backs the XS2000 with an industry-leading 5-year warranty and free technical support.
Enclosure Details
Kingston's native USB speedster is enclosed by a rugged metal/plastic enclosure. Its enclosure is tested to be water-resistant, dust-resistant, and shockproof with an included rubber sleeve. The XS2000 comes with a USB Type-C cable. If you want to use the drive with USB Type-A interfaces, you will need to have a Type-C to A cable on hand.
Jon's Test System Specifications - Intel Z590
Note: For USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 SSDs, we test on our Z590 system set to match our Intel NUC 11 specs (4.8GHz, 8-threads, DDR4 3200, balanced power plan).
Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, ATTO & Blackmagic
CrystalDiskMark
The 2TB model joins its smaller sibling as the fastest non-thunderbolt device we've tested to date when serving data to the host. Impressive.
ATTO
Nearly full speed at 128KB transfers and a good consistent pattern that doesn't show any signs of throttling as transfer sizes increase. Excellent. Again, the XS2000 delivers by far the best 128K read transfer rates for any non-thunderbolt device we've tested to date.
Blackmagic
Blackmagic shows the world's fastest native USB device to be capable of handling even 4K 60FPS video processing via a USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 host interface. Impressive.
Real-World Testing: PCMark 10 & Transfer Rates
PCMark 10 Data Drive Benchmark
Outstanding performance here, better than most NVMe over USB portables can do. The XS2000 will be right at home if employed as a data drive.
Transfer Rates
We brutalize our test subjects with our extremely hard-to-swallow 100GB data block. This data block is the same one we use for our internal SSD testing and comprises more than 62K files. Here we see the 1TB model with a distinct advantage when transferring data chunks of this magnitude. This is undoubtedly die capacity related. Nevertheless, quite respectable.
Serving data to the host is another matter, and here we find the 2TB model can serve data to the host at speeds much faster than any USB interfaced portables we've tested to date, including the USB Gen3.2 x2 interfaced P50. Wow.
Final Thoughts
Everywhere we looked, Kingston's 2TB XS2000 gave us what we wanted to see. Not only is it the most compatible USB-based portable SSD we've tested to date, but it's also, at the same time, overall the fastest. Remarkable, really, and as such, Kingston's XS2000 2TB has earned our highest award and recommendation.
Pros
- Speed
- Portability
- 5-year warranty
Cons
- None
Performance |
100% |
Quality |
90% |
Features |
100% |
Value |
100% |
Overall |
98% |
2TB of the fastest USB interfaced storage available is something we all need.
What's in Jon's PC?
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7800X 3D
- MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE AORUS Master X670E
- RAM: Kingston Fury Renegade 7200MHz 32GB
- GPU: ZOTAC AMP Extreme GeForce RTX 4090
- SSD: Crucial T700 2TB Gen5
- OS: Windows 11 Pro
- COOLER: Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO
- CASE: Lian Li Lancool III
- KEYBOARD: Corsair K65 RGB Mini
- MOUSE: SteelSeries AEROX 5 Wireless
- MONITOR: ASUS ROG Strix PG27AQN 360Hz 1440p ULMB2
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