Kingston Introduces NV1 Entry-Level NVMe SSD
by Billy Tallis on March 30, 2021 4:30 PM EST
As previewed at CES, Kingston's newest entry-level consumer NVMe SSD is now shipping. The new NV1 uses a similar strategy to Kingston's entry-level SATA drives like the A400, where Kingston is not guaranteeing a specific set of internal components and expects to mix controllers and NAND to hit the cheapest price points. That results in very conservative performance and endurance specifications: sequential transfers around 2GB/s and endurance ratings around 0.2 DWPD for three years.
| Kingston NV1 SSD Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | ||
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 | ||||
| Sequential Read (MB/s) | 2100 | ||||
| Sequential Write (MB/s) | 1700 | ||||
| Warranty | 3 years | ||||
| Write Endurance | 120 TB 0.2 DWPD |
240 TB 0.2 DWPD |
480 TB 0.2 DWPD |
||
| Launch Price (Direct from Kingston) |
$63.70 (13¢/GB) |
$115.70 (12¢/GB) |
$224.90 (11¢/GB) |
||
| Retail Price (CDW) | $59.99 (12¢/GB) |
$107.99 (11¢/GB) |
$208.99 (10¢/GB) |
||
The Kingston NV1 uses DRAMless SSD controllers like the Phison E13T and Silicon Motion SM2263XT, which are both getting a bit old but are still sufficient to offer a step up from SATA performance. The NAND will tend to be TLC on the smaller capacities and QLC for at least the 2TB model, but realistically Kingston could use either type of NAND on any of the capacities depending on market conditions.
The NV1 is a more low-end drive than Kingston's existing A2000 NVMe SSD, which uses TLC NAND and has DRAM, but uses the 4-channel SM2263 controller rather than a more mainstream 8-channel controller. The NV1 does reflect the market's shift toward higher capacities, with the product line starting at 500GB and going up to 2TB. We expect retail prices for the NV1 will end up cheaper than the A2000, but for the moment the pricing direct from Kingston is only marginally cheaper. The NV1 has been listed on CDW with pricing that is generally competitive with other low-end NVMe drives.
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YB1064 - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
$225 for uncertainty in components, low end NAND and a crippled controller?? GTFO. The 2Tb is worth about 75-100 bucks tops.drexnx - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
yeah, what? who would buy this?The Inland 2tb Professional TLC E12S drives are the same price and that's a DRAM+TLC+8ch drive
0ldman79 - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
Pretty sure his main complaint is the "quality" of the components.There is no guaranteed quality.
If you're getting QLC and know you're getting QLC it's one thing, without listing parts properly it could be anything in there.
I get why Kingston went that route but they should have lower prices reflecting the Russian Roulette being played here.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
I recommend the TLC Inland Professional drives to people (in SATA and NVME). Seem to have the best bang for the buck.One of them (an NVME) replaced a faulty Samsung QLC SATA drive that came back faulty after the RMA. The Inland is working flawlessly.
MenhirMike - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
A $100 2 TB SSD would be a steal, even if it's the lowest low end DRAMless SATA QLC drive. That said, agreed that $225 is way too much, I can get a SX8200 Pro or EX950 for that.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
The only thing stolen by a dramless QLC drive is a person's time, or possibly data.Samus - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
There is no way Kingston could make this drive $100 and have a profit. They have zero vertical integration and rely on sourced components. They buy wafers and bin RAM\NAND, controllers, and PCB's to their specifications (usually a reference design) along with other necessary components to make DRAM and SSD products, and assemble them at one of their facilities (they have quite a few around the world.) So they rely on vendors and market conditions for pricing and quality, thus their customers rely on their vendors and market conditions for pricing and quality. It's overall a bad deal for the end-user and frankly I think Kingston, at this point, relies on their brand recognition to sell anything. Didn't they recently sell HyperX to AMD?xrror - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
They sold HyperX to HP I think. Which ironically the HP EX950 pretty much would be my recommendation over anything in this NV1 line, being both less expensive, more performant, and critically consistent.Lakados - Thursday, April 1, 2021 - link
I don't know what the market for this is, but I have a feeling it's for ultra-cheap laptops.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link
Low end = excuse to raise the price of high end.Standard Marketing.