HyperDisk is a Tiny Portable SSD on Kickstarter

On the surface, the HyperDisk portable SSD looks incredible, but once you dive a little more into the details, some things are a bit sketchy. At least for a storage guy such as me. But before I get to that, let’s take a look at what the Kickstarter project promises.

HyperDisk Portable SSD

The HyperDisk SSD promises USB 3.1 Gen.2 performance (10Gbps) with up to 1GB/s transfer speeds from a 45g light portable drive with universal compatibility. On top of that, the Kickstarter campaign allows backers to get up to a 2TB version. Price-wise, the 2TB version can be yours for $1.799 HK which equals about $229 USD. That is a very good price, especially for a portable drive of that size. A little too good if you ask me.

The drive is composed of a 2242 SSD module packed in an aluminium alloy shell. The whole thing then connects through a Type-C connector on the drive. So far, so good.

Is It Even Possible?

Technology-wise, it is possible to create such a drive – but I question some parts of it and the pieces of information that have been left out of the description and which aren’t answered in the comments section either. So let us dive into my issues with the HyperDisk.

To begin with, there is the 2240-sized module which the whole drive is based upon and what allows it to stay so small. Currently, they’re pretty much limited to 512GB. That said, the company is utilising Intel NAND and with the recent QLC NAND, higher capacities are possible. Still. The module pictured uses separate packages for the controller and NAND which limits the number of chips possible to add to such a tiny module and thereby the capacity. Capacities up to 1TB, I would believe. But 2TB on a 2240 module, I don’t think so. That only leaves one option which is a RAID setup with 2 modules. As such, there’s no real issue with that, except that it’s a huge point of possible failure. Even assuming all that is true, it doesn’t add up price-wise in the end with what the company is asking. And it isn’t disclosed. The company also hasn’t shown any working 2TB versions, only the smallest 512GB drive.

Make Up Your Own Mind!

All that is just my belief and personal opinion. So I challenge you to make up your own mind on the HyperDisk. But I’m not buying it, at least not until I’ve seen truly independent 3rd party reviews and teardowns of the drive.

You can check out the campaign which is running until the 6th December by clicking here.

What I would Do Instead

If you want this kind of performance from a portable drive, then I would recommend a proper solution. For example, the M2X enclosure from MyDigitalSSD and the NVMe drive of your choice. You can check out our review of this solution here. But it isn’t the only option, there are many more portable NVMe enclosures on the market by now. They might be a little bit bigger, but also offer more options with full-sized 2280 modules.