Kingston XS1000 1TB External SSD Red

This is great! I love how tiny and compact this external ssd is. It is easy to transport and fits perfectly in my laptop bag to go to and from. It is tiny but mighty with 2TB of storage! I was frequently having to choose which files to keep and which to delete as my laptop was quickly running out of room for storage. This is such a great product and it’s no wonder it was the reddot winner in 2024. It even comes with an extra adapter so it is compatible with almost any computer or laptop.

Wow these things are tiny nowadays! This Kingston External Solid State Drive is impressive! The packaging contains the drive, a usb-a to usb-c adapter and an usb-a to usb-c cable to connect to your laptop or computer. It’s virtually silent and has an extraordinary amount of space to store anything you need to. It’s small size and great quality make for an exceptional external SSD.

A Mighty Portable Storage Solution with Field-Tested Perform

The Kingston 2TB XS1000 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 External SSD has worked as advertised for about thirty days or so. I purchased for use as a backup solution in the field. The setup includes an iPhone 15 Pro (iOS 17.2), an OWC USB Type-C Travel Dock supplied by 30W Power Delivery and using its integrated USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C Cable connected to the iPhone, and Angelbird 256GB AV Pro UHS-II SDXC Memory Card, a Delkin Devices USB 3.2 CFexpress Memory Card Reader with a SanDisk 512GB Extreme PRO CFexpress Card Type B, and of course, the subject of this review, the Kingston 2TB XS1000 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 External SSD. The setup works flawlessly with some observations. Transfer speeds through the described USB hub are about 400 MB/s, whereas, with the SSD plugged in directly to the ... MoreThe Kingston 2TB XS1000 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 External SSD has worked as advertised for about thirty days or so. I purchased for use as a backup solution in the field. The setup includes an iPhone 15 Pro (iOS 17.2), an OWC USB Type-C Travel Dock supplied by 30W Power Delivery and using its integrated USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C Cable connected to the iPhone, and Angelbird 256GB AV Pro UHS-II SDXC Memory Card, a Delkin Devices USB 3.2 CFexpress Memory Card Reader with a SanDisk 512GB Extreme PRO CFexpress Card Type B, and of course, the subject of this review, the Kingston 2TB XS1000 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 External SSD. The setup works flawlessly with some observations. Transfer speeds through the described USB hub are about 400 MB/s, whereas, with the SSD plugged in directly to the iPhone, transfer speeds are about double at 800 MB/s. When the SSD is plugged directly into an Apple silicon Mac, speeds are slightly better at about 900 MB/s. The latter is closer to the manufacturer's specified speeds of 1000 MB/s. The bottom line is that the Kingston 2TB XS1000 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 is a small but mighty SSD that sits somewhere between USB 3.2 Gen 1 and Gen 2 speeds. It is a great solution for use in the field.Note: I used the standard iOS Files App to copy Canon RAW Lite and XF-AVC video files from SD and CFExpress cards. I had no issues copying and moving files around while in the field.

Compact, Quick, and a lot of Space to Store Files

For over a decade, I have worked with numerous external drives for all types of computing uses. The Western Digital XS1000 1TB external USB-C drive is an incredible leap forward in terms of capacity and speed. The external interface (usually over USB) typically slows down data transfer rates, but even with the included USB-C to USB-A cable transfers of 50GB+ completed in less than 5 minutes. When I tried my USB-C to USB-C cable the speed just increased. The small footprint of the drive makes it easily portable and it's lightweight as well. One major advantage of the SSD is that there are no spinning disks to worry about damaging in transit. This drive is my new standard for portable storage and I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone who needs a lot of space on the go!

Plenty of storage and compact

The SSD drive was perfect to store all of my files and media I wanted saved. It works great at transferring documents, pictures, and videos. It’s pretty fast and has 2tb of storage which is more than enough storage for everything I use it for. I mostly use it to save my pictures and videos. It’s small and lightweight which makes it easy to carry it around.

Real world Read/Write speed

Rating as 4 star - Good for the price, built and manufacturer warranty of 5 years. Product is as per description although the real world speed varies:On MacBook: If APFS format: Speed drops to 600-800MB/s and ExFat format surprisingly increased Read/Write speed of 1600MB/s is achieved.On Windows: 900-1000 MB/s as advertised.Note: Encryption will decrease speed to 500 MB/s. Also once drive is 75% full, Read/Write speed drops to 250-350MB/s