Memory guru, Kingston has launched its entry-level NV1 NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory express) PCIe SDDs. Aimed for use in laptops and small form factor PCs, these tiny but fast drives single-sided M.2 SSDs promise to be a great upgrade or new build storage solution.
NVMe M.2 drives have rapidly changed the consumer PC storage landscape. The NV1 uses the M.2 2280 form factor, being 22mm wide, 80mm long, and only a few millimetres thick. This enables the drive to fit in the slenderest of laptops and placed discretely out of the way in svelte PC builds.
As NVMe utilises the PCIe bus, it transfers 25x more data than the traditional SATA interfaces. Along with more data, NVMe commands are 2x faster than that of AHCI drivers. NVMe input/output operations per second (IOPS) exceed 1 million, up to 900% faster compared to AHCI drives. NVMe also communicates directly with the system CPU. NVMe drives work with all major operating systems regardless of form factor.
M.2 SSDs slot directly into the motherboard and are secured with one screw. They are easy to install and there’s no need for messy cabling. Desktops without an M.2 socket can often utilise 3rd-party PCIe adapter cards to upgrade to the lightning-fast speeds provided by NVMe.
A traditional hard disk drive has a read speed of around 130 MB/s and a 90 MB/s write speed. Standard SATA solid state drives have a read speed of around 390 MB/s. The NV1, boasts speeds of 2100 MB/s read and 1700 MB/s write. A massive improvement.
The NV1 utilises NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4 Lanes. Whilst this is not the fastest NVMe SSD in the marketplace, Kingston states that the NV1 is intended to be an affordable entry-level SSD for new and existing users. The NV1 SSD, according to Kingston, uses less power and thus produces less heat, another boon for laptops and PCs with restricted airflow.
Kingston’s NV1 comes in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB versions. Even the 500GB unit is larger enough to accommodate Windows 10 for near-instantaneous boot-ups.
The drives come with a 3-year warranty. Kingston reports that the endurance of the 500GB drive is 120TBW (Terabytes Written), with the 1TB SSD being 240TBW and the 2TB SDD being 480TBW.
Users of older laptops without compatible M.2 slots may want to consider the mSATA version of Kingston’s KC600 SSD. These 3D TLC NAND SSDs (which are also available in the more traditional 2.5” housings) feature read/write speeds of up to 550/520MB/s to efficiently store up to 2TB of data.
The 500GB Kingston NV1 NVMe SSD is available for around NZ$100, with the 1TB version costing around NZ$175 and the 2TB for around NZ$350.