The Kingston XS1000 portable SSD is designed for creators seeking a fast and tiny drive for all their storage needs. The XS1000 recently hit the market alongside its more powerful brother, the XS2000. When looking at the portside of the SSD it somewhat resembles the shape of a candy bar.

The Kingston XS1000 portable SSD is designed for creators seeking a fast and tiny drive for all their storage needs. The XS1000 recently hit the market alongside its more powerful brother, the XS2000. When looking at the portside of the SSD it somewhat resembles the shape of a candy bar.

Kingston XS1000 Portable SSD

The Kingston XS1000 comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface which is standard for this class of portable SSD, so no surprises there. The Kingston XS2000 has a superior USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface. However, this obviously comes at a cost, with the XS1000 running for about $25 cheaper than the 2TB model.

There isn’t anything wrong with the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface though if this is what users are looking for. The drive still packs a pretty good punch, with a read speed of 1,050MB/s and 1,000MB/s write. The XS1000 comes in 1TB and 2TB models, Kingston sent us the 2TB model for our review.

Kingston’s performance claims are average for this class of drive, but what isn’t average is its small size. We recently reviewed the Crucial X9 Pro which is in this class of drive and we were pretty shocked at how small it was, but this SSD is even smaller in many ways! The XS1000 beats the Crucial X9 Pro in length, width, and weight, measuring 69.54 x 32.58 mm and weighing 1.01 ounces. The Crucial X9 Pro is 3.5mm thinner than the XS1000 though, so it does win there. Decreasing SSD size has clearly become a norm in the industry.

Small and light drives are nice for professionals because they will often carry over a dozen portable SSDs. Every mm and ounce adds up in cases like this. Critics could argue that smaller drives are more difficult to find and therefore easier to lose, but we will leave it up to users to come to this conclusion.

The Kingston XS1000 1TB is currently going for $65.83, and the 2TB is going for $108.72 on Amazon. The portable SSD comes with a 5-year limited warranty with free technical support.

See the specification sheet below for more details:

Kingston XS1000 Portable SSD Specifications

For our review, we tested with a Lenovo ThinkStation P520 Workstation. We are testing the 2TB drive in this review. For comparisons, we’re including the following drives below. All drives being tested are in a similar class to the Kingston XS1000.

• Samsung T7 Shield 2TB Portable SSD
• SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 1TB
• Crucial X9 Pro 2TB Portable SSD

First up is the Blackmagic test. The Kingston XS1000 2TB reached speeds of 969.7MB/s read and 923.9MB/s write. This is a bit under what Kingston claimed, but this is standard for the industry so there are no real surprises there. The Blackmagic test is a single thread test, meaning it won’t push the SSD to its entire capability so we can expect higher speeds in our 4t testing later.

This is how the Kingston XS1000 stood up against its competitors. Results are similar across the board, with the XS1000 coming third in writes and first in reads.

The next test is the IOMeter 1 thread. First up is the 2MB sequential speeds where the Kingston XS1000 had impressive speeds of 813.7MB/s write and 919.3MB/s read, putting it in second and first place in these categories respectively. Random 2MB write was 787.2MB/s (third) and read was 871.4MB/s (second). Random 4K write and read was 18,078 IOPS and 4,417 IOPS respectively, ranking it in second and third for these categories. The Kingston XS1000 narrowly missed out on first in a few of these categories and it had an impressive performance overall.

Next up is the IOMeter 4-thread testing. This testing puts a heavier workload on the SSDs, therefore meaning the results will be much closer to what Kingston has quoted. Sequential 2MB write and read were 988.9MB/s and 1,040.4MB/s respectively which puts the Kingston drive in the middle of the pack for this metric. Random 2MB write was good with a reading of 945.8MB/s, but it really shined with its read speed of 1,040.4MB/s, putting it first place in this category. Random 4K read and write were good too with IOPS readings of 65,607 writes and 17,697 reads, placing the SSD among the best.

Conclusion 

The Kingston XS1000 portable SSD performed as expected in our testing. The SSD is great for professional users who are looking to fit as much storage into a small space as possible. With a weight of only 1.01 ounces, we are surprised that Kingston is not pushing this narrative more.

In terms of performance, the Kingston XS1000 did great, it’s definitely one of the front runners in the market right now. The problem with measuring these SSDs in terms of performance is that they are all similar. Most users would likely not notice a performance difference between all four of these SSDs. This is why we often encourage users to look at drive design and price to make the best decision.

There are some somewhat significant differences in price for these four SSDs. The Kingston XS1000 is the cheapest drive in both the 1TB and 2TB category. This is impressive considering companies often upcharge their drives when they first come out and lower the price over time. The XS1000 doesn’t come in 4TB, but the other three do which is worth considering when deciding which drive to purchase.

There are a lot of great things going for the Kingston XS1000. Performance is near the top of its class, consistently ranking around second in a lot of categories, and first and third in some. It gets even better when looking at its small size and weight, and better yet when looking at the price. Users in the portable SSD market should definitely consider the Kingston XS1000 when looking for 1TB and 2TB mainstream portable drives.

XS1000 at Amazon

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