The Kingston KC2000 SSD Review: Bringing BiCS4 To Retail
by Billy Tallis on July 22, 2019 8:00 AM ESTMixed Random Performance
Our test of mixed random reads and writes covers mixes varying from pure reads to pure writes at 10% increments. Each mix is tested for up to 1 minute or 32GB of data transferred. The test is conducted with a queue depth of 4, and is limited to a 64GB span of the drive. In between each mix, the drive is given idle time of up to one minute so that the overall duty cycle is 50%.
The Kingston KC2000 performs well on the mixed random IO test. It's a bit slower overall than the ADATA SX8200 Pro that uses the same controller, but still fast enough for this market segment.
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| Power Efficiency in MB/s/W | Average Power in W | ||||||||
The power efficiency of the KC2000 during the mixed random IO test is second-tier, falling behind the Toshiba and WD drives that also use BiCS TLC and the ADATA SX8200 Pro that uses Micron NAND with the same SM2262EN controller as the KC2000.
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The ADATA SX8200 Pro with Micron NAND earns a higher overall score than the KC2000 largely due to better performance on the more read-heavy half of the test, while the KC2000 mostly catches up during the write-intensive portions. The Samsung 970 EVO Plus by contrast earns its advantage primarily from better performance during the write-heavy half of the test.
Mixed Sequential Performance
Our test of mixed sequential reads and writes differs from the mixed random I/O test by performing 128kB sequential accesses rather than 4kB accesses at random locations, and the sequential test is conducted at queue depth 1. The range of mixes tested is the same, and the timing and limits on data transfers are also the same as above.
On the mixed sequential read/write test, the Kingston KC2000 is slower than most high-end NVMe SSDs, though it does significantly outperform the Toshiba XG6 that relies on the same 96L TLC NAND.
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| Power Efficiency in MB/s/W | Average Power in W | ||||||||
The subpar performance of the KC2000 on the mixed sequential test carries over to its efficiency score. The KC2000's power draw is about average, but it doesn't deliver quite as much performance within that power envelope.
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Strikamos - Tuesday, July 23, 2019 - link
Thank you for the reply @Death666Angel. It will be my main storage, will have the Operating System running and I'll be doing video editing and rendering.I was looking for 2TB options and wanted to stay away from the Samsungs because of my budget. The Corsair MP510 and the ADATA seemed to be the best options available.
patrickjp93 - Thursday, July 25, 2019 - link
more like 1/4 over-provisioned, so the math still very much favours Adata and more of them unless your power bill are something fierce or your system density is a key priority.Foeketijn - Tuesday, July 23, 2019 - link
I didn't mean they are unbeatable. More like, the 970's are already a year on the market and still beat this latest and greatest kingston SSD with their "budget" offering.eastcoast_pete - Monday, July 22, 2019 - link
Thanks Billy! One suggestion: Show price-performance ratios for the key parameters. Yes, most of us would love to have a 1.5 or 2 TB Optane SSD in our "if I won the lottery " system, but that is just not the real world. Any chance of such a rating, even as a summary score of sorts?Kristian Vättö - Monday, July 22, 2019 - link
SSD pricing, and all memory (DRAM/NAND) for that matter, is too dynamic to make such graph useful. Tomorrow's price might be totally different, not to forget pricing in different stores, regions, sales etc.erinadreno - Wednesday, July 24, 2019 - link
Is that just me or there's too many NAND packages for 1 TB drive?sjkpublic@gmail.com - Thursday, July 25, 2019 - link
2TB write endurance 1200 TB? 600 writes and it heads south? Misprint?patrickjp93 - Thursday, July 25, 2019 - link
That's just what they guarantee it to. It's corporate butt covering.Death666Angel - Sunday, July 28, 2019 - link
The Samsung 840 500GB SSD (first TLC drive with "the bug") I used as a system drive for 5 years had only 12TB TBW to it. And I do like to install windows every once in a while and I rotate a lot of my steam library. I did have a separate 750GB download HDD for videos and large images. But honestly, if 1.2PB writes seem small to you, what are you doing looking in the consumer review section? :D