Actually it’s both. There’s a new kid in USB flash drive town called the HyperX 3.0. This little dandy is put out by Kingston. 3.0 USB flash drives or external drives are all the rage, and manufacturers are doing everything they can in order to take advantage of the popular bandwidth.

The Rocket

The whole rocket idea comes in because USB drives are capable of speeds as high as 625 MB’s most disk drives are capable of far less. So to improve the performance, USB 3.0 controllers have been paired with SSD’s; but this product ended up being too cumbersome, it looked more like a laptop then a storage unit. Kingston tried solving this problem with the latest Corsair 32 GB Voyager GT; and before that the Data Traveler G2 32 GB Ultimate. But even those couldn’t fully utilize the speeds possible. This is why Kingston has now introduced the HyperX Data Traveler 3.0. This new and improved product combines the new high performance HyperX brand with the former Data Traveler. The user of this new pocket rocket will enjoy nearly double any other previous model with 135 MB/write and 225 MB/read ranges. Increased speed saves time; and time is money in most cases.

And Speaking of Money

The technology of this level of advancement does not, however, come cheaply. These new flash drives will come in several levels: for 64 GB expect to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $190 plus; 128 GB will run approximately $125 plus; and an impressive 256 GB (though the price is reportedly still to be determined) is expected to run between $800 or as low as $700. Inferior SSD’s of that size are similar in price; so consider that before fainting at the price of the new HyperX.

There is even a possibility that we can expect to see, somewhere in the far off future, speeds of up to 500 GB from a USB flash drive.