Kingston HyperX / HyperX 3K 5.03 Firmware Update Released, Benchmarked

Been waiting for that elusive 5.03 firmware update which is supposed to fix TRIM in HyperX and HyperX 3K SSDs to drop? Well, wait no more because it’s finally here!

Those interested in updating the HyperX 3K SSD to firmware v5.03 may download the update here. It will come with Kingston’s own “Field Updater” firmware update utility along with the files required to update the HyperX 3K from firmware version 5.01 to 5.03. Those using the SSD as a boot drive will need to connect the drive to a separate computer to complete this procedure. The update is supposed to be “non destructive” so data should not be wiped during the update process, but it’s always recommend that you make a backup just in case.

Those interested in updating the original HyperX SSD to firmware v5.03 should be able to download the update here soon. Kingston hasn’t updated the links to the update yet (at the time this article was written). The procedure should be identical to the update process on the HyperX 3K SSD.

That said, I (being the brave soul I am) was able to successfully update my original HyperX 240GB SSD’s firmware from 5.01 to 5.03 using the firmware for the HyperX 3K. I’ll personally say it works, but please do not attempt this as it may destroy your SSD. If you choose to do so, do it at your own risk.

In addition to updating the SSD to the new firmware, I also did some quick testing on the original Kingston HyperX 240GB drive as well. Since it’s a firmware update that fixes TRIM, I didn’t really expect that it’d make too big a difference on a clean drive, but I ran a couple benchmarks for reference anyway. Those who have a lot of data on their drives or those who constantly do a lot of write/erase operations on their drive would likely notice the largest performance improvements from this update.

Ivy Bridge Test Bench

Special thanks to Gigabyte, Kingston, and HSPC for sponsoring our test bench!

HyperX 240GB 1.05 Firmware Update Performance

For performance comparisons to firmware 5.01, please refer to our review of the Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD.

ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46

ATTO Disk Benchmark is one of the industry’s oldest and most popular benchmarks for testing disk read/write speeds. This benchmarks allows read and write testing using predefined block sizes and gives us a good idea of read/write speeds with different sized files. Most SSD manufacturers these days prefer using this benchmark when advertising SSDs as it tests using compressible data, which tends to yield better performance.

Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.1 x64

Crystal Disk Mark is another popular benchmark which allows us to measure both sequential read/write speeds as well as random read/write speeds. With this benchmark, tests can be run using both random fill (incompressible data) and 0 fill (compressible data). Realistically in typical computer usage scenarios, data being transferred will consist of a mixture of both incompressible and compressible data.

AS SSD Benchmark

AS SSD is a very commonly used benchmark used to measure SSD performance in a number of categories. Here, tests are run using incompressible data, which most simulate real world usage. It also outputs a final score at the conclusion of the test based off the read and write performance of the drive.

Anvil Storage Utilities

Anvil Storage Utilities is an excellent all around benchmark for testing many different functions of SSD performance. For our purposes, we ran the benchmark through both 0 fill mode (compressible data) on the left and 100% compression (incompressible data) on the right.

PC Mark 7

The PC Mark 7 storage test tests the SSD under many different real world tests such as gaming, video editing, etc. This is most representative of the SSD’s performance under real world situations.

Conclusions

As expected, I didn’t see a whole lot of performance improvement going from firmware 5.01 to firmware 5.03 on the empty Kingston HyperX 240GB. There was a bit of improvement in read performance, but it isn’t that significant. Of course, I’m happy to take any free performance improvements I can get.

It seems like the update did help the Kingston HyperX 240GB secure an even higher spot on our PC Mark 7 charts though. First time any SSD’s surpassed the 5400 point mark in the secondary storage score. Well done, Kingston.

**Note**

Remember, I’m using the HyperX 3K’s 5.03 firmware on the original HyperX for these benchmarks, so numbers here may not truly be accurate.