Package

The Drive

The Kingston XS1000 is really compact, much smaller than many other external SSDs.


The outer shell of the XS1000 is made out of black plastic.


A single USB-C port lets you connect to the drive. A blue activity indicator is located right next to the USB-C port.

Disassembly

The drive uses a clipping mechanism to hold the two sides together. Opening the SSD without breaking the little clips or leaving marks on the plastic will be almost impossible.


On the SSD, we find four NAND chips and the SSD controller. A DRAM cache is not available.


The flash chips are Toshiba 112-layer BiCS5 3D TLC NAND.


The Silicon Motion SM2320G is a modern design that combines the USB interface and SSD controller logic into a single processor. It uses four channels to connect to the flash chips and has support for QLC and TLC NAND.