Popular for its lineup of fairly inexpensive 2.5-inch SATA III SSDs, Kingston has rapidly expanded into the M.2 territory in recent times. It launched the A2000 in 2019 and the KC2500 in 2020. And a week ago, they announced their new entrant – the NV1 NVMe SSD.
The drive features 3 variants – 500GB, 1TB and 2TB. All variants come with a standard 3-year warranty. In addition to that, the SSD comes with free tech support from the company.
The different variants are said to support identical read and write speeds of 2,100 MB/s and 1,700 MB/s. The company claims that the drive uses less power, emits less heat, and has quicker load times which makes it perfect for computers with limited space.
But, before going further, one thing should be cleared that this SSD is nothing like the Kingston A400 that has a TLC and a DRAM. This one is a DRAM-Less SSD. So, you may not get very high-end offerings from it. However, in my opinion, the company has focused this product on the low-budget audience with average usage.
Here are some key specifications of the drive:
| SPECS | 500 GB | 1000 GB | 2000 GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read/Write Speed | 2,100MB/s Read 1,700MB/s Write | 2,100MB/s Read 1,700MB/s Write | 2,100MB/s Read 1,700MB/s Write |
| Interface | NVMe™ PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4 Lanes | NVMe™ PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4 Lanes | NVMe™ PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4 Lanes |
| Endurance | 120 TB | 240 TB | 480 TB |
| DWPD | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Storage Temperature | -40°C~85°C | -40°C~85°C | -40°C~85°C |
| Warranty | Limited 3-year warranty | Limited 3-year warranty | Limited 3-year warranty |
| Weight | 7g | 7g | 7g |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
The drive features a DRAM-less SSD controller like the Silicon Motion SM2263XT and the Phison E13T. These controllers are aging but still should be sufficient to offer better performance than the SATA alternatives.
The existing A2000 NVMe SSD from Kingston can be referred to as the elder sibling of the NV1 even though it uses the 4-channel SM2263 controller rather than a conventional 8-channel controller.
Although the release prices are only borderline cheaper than that of the A2000, the future retail prices are expected to be significantly less because if not, it would not make sense to go for a low-end DRAMless drive for around the same price.
Also Read: Kingston A2000 vs Kingston NV1: The Right Pick!
What type of cache memory is used in Kingston NV1?
Well, the company has told nothing about the same. However, according to Anandtech, this SSD is definitely coming up without any DRAM. Now, the company must have utilized an MLC or TLC as cache storage. It will be good if we see TLC in MLC mode or MLC in SLC mode.
But, there are no clear evidence anywhere about the cache storage used in this product.
Who should buy the NV1: First Impression
The theoretical speed specs are great enough if we have a look at the price tags. But, the biggest problem is with its cache. The SSD doesn’t have a DRAM and the company haven’t told what type of cache memory is being used.
Clearly, this SSD is supposed to be a low-end storage device but with comparatively higher read and write speeds than the SATA. But, can NV1 really give you the performance a normal low-end NVMe can give? That’s the question that is going to be revealed soon once this SSD hits popular online markets like Amazon.
However, we should expect around 1500MB/s sequential read and around 1000MB/s write speed (consist) from this SSD. So, if this speed is OK for you, you should definitely go for it. But, it would be good to wait for some time until the SSD is already there in the market and the benchmark scores are live.
I hope that this article has provided you all the information that you need about the all-new Kingston NV1 NVMe SSD. You can get in touch if you have any queries.
Thanks for reading!
