The Kingston KC2000 SSD Review: Bringing BiCS4 To Retail

Sequential Read Performance

Our first test of sequential read performance uses short bursts of 128MB, issued as 128kB operations with no queuing. The test averages performance across eight bursts for a total of 1GB of data transferred from a drive containing 16GB of data. Between each burst the drive is given enough idle time to keep the overall duty cycle at 20%.

The burst sequential read performance of the Kingston KC2000 is excellent, though slightly slower than the same SSD controller manages when paired with Micron 64L TLC rather than the Toshiba 96L TLC that Kingston is using.

Our test of sustained sequential reads uses queue depths from 1 to 32, with the performance and power scores computed as the average of QD1, QD2 and QD4. Each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB transferred, from a drive containing 64GB of data. This test is run twice: once with the drive prepared by sequentially writing the test data, and again after the random write test has mixed things up, causing fragmentation inside the SSD that isn't visible to the OS. These two scores represent the two extremes of how the drive would perform under real-world usage, where wear leveling and modifications to some existing data will create some internal fragmentation that degrades performance, but usually not to the extent shown here.

On the longer sequential read test that brings in some higher queue depths, the KC2000's performance doesn't stand out from other top TLC NVMe drives. The Samsung 970 EVO Plus is roughly 5-15% faster, but you have to step up to an MLC or Optane drive to see a huge boost to the worst-case fragmented data performance.

Power Efficiency in MB/s/W	Average Power in W

The power efficiency of The Kingston KC2000 during the sequential read test is not quite top tier, but it is still acceptable for a high-end NVMe SSD. In absolute terms, the KC2000 is one of the most power-hungry M.2 drives in this bunch, and it doesn't quite have enough performance to match.

Kingston KC2000 1TBIntel SSD 660p 1TBSamsung 860 EVO 1TBIntel Optane SSD 905P 1.5TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung 970 PRO 1TBKingston A1000 960GBSilicon Power P34A80 1TBWD Black SN750 1TBToshiba XG6 1TBADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB

The Kingston KC2000 is fairly well-behaved across the range of queue depths tested, reaching full speed at QD4 or higher. However, it is always a bit slower and more power-hungry than the ADATA SX8200 Pro.

Comparing the KC2000 against the entire library of test results shows that it mostly offers the performance expected from a PCIe 3 x4 drive, but doesn't quite saturate the link as well as the competition, and its power efficiency is nothing special.

Sequential Write Performance

Our test of sequential write burst performance is structured identically to the sequential read burst performance test save for the direction of the data transfer. Each burst writes 128MB as 128kB operations issued at QD1, for a total of 1GB of data written to a drive containing 16GB of data.

The burst sequential write speed of the Kingston KC2000 is much slower than the fastest high-end NVMe SSDs offer, but still acceptable for this market segment. The SSD controller clearly isn't the bottleneck since the ADATA SX8200 Pro is faster by over 200MB/s, and judging by the WD Black it appears the 96L BiCS4 TLC isn't really any faster than the 64L BiCS3 TLC.

Our test of sustained sequential writes is structured identically to our sustained sequential read test, save for the direction of the data transfers. Queue depths range from 1 to 32 and each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB, followed by up to one minute of idle time for the drive to cool off and perform garbage collection. The test is confined to a 64GB span of the drive.

On the longer sequential write test the KC2000 again isn't the fastest, but it holds up better than the Phison E12 drive and doesn't lose much ground relative to the other SM2262EN drive.

Power Efficiency in MB/s/W	Average Power in W

The power efficiency of the Kingston KC2000 during the sequential write test is good, but a bit lower than the fastest drives that only require slightly more power.

Kingston KC2000 1TBIntel SSD 660p 1TBSamsung 860 EVO 1TBIntel Optane SSD 905P 1.5TBSamsung 970 EVO Plus 1TBSamsung 970 PRO 1TBKingston A1000 960GBSilicon Power P34A80 1TBWD Black SN750 1TBToshiba XG6 1TBADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB

The Kingston KC2000 hits its full sequential write speed at QD2 and has no trouble maintaining that speed for the rest of the test thanks to the large SLC cache. However, it's still a much slower SLC write speed than Intel/Micron and Samsung NAND offers.

Plotting the KC2000's sequential write results against the broader landscape shows that the KC2000 doesn't make it very far into true high-end performance territory, and its power consumption is a bit high for the maximum speeds it does attain.