Kingston A1000 480GB NVMe SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Kingston A1000 480GB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. IOMETER8. 128KB Sequential Performance9. 4K Random Read v QD Performance10. 4K Random Write v QD Performance11. 4K 70/30 Mixed Performance12. Throughput13. PCMark 8 - Storage Consistency14. PCMark 8 - Individual Test Suites15. PCMark 8 Storage Test - Individual Test Suites16. Performance Stability17. Real Life File Testing18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

The A1000 comes in a protective blister pack with the drive sitting under a clear plastic shroud for extra protection. The only other things in the tray besides the drive are a tiny ‘getting started' guide and an activation code for Acronis True Image HD which can be downloaded from Kingston's website.

There's no mounting screw included, which will only be a problem if you lost the one(s) that should have been included with your motherboard.

    
The 480GB A1000 is a single-sided M.2 2280 drive with a label covering all the components on the front side. The rear side is bare PCB.

Removing the label (and voiding the warranty) reveals all the drive's components.

There are four Toshiba 256Gb BiCS 3D TLC NAND packages (labelled as Kingston FB12808UCT1-32), the Phison PS5008-E8 four channel controller and a DDR3 cache IC. The PS5008-E is built on a 40nm process and is compatible with PCIe Rev 3.1 and NVMe 1.2. It supports MLC and TLC as well as 3D NAND.

It also supports Phison's StrongECC, SmartECC and SmartFlush technologies as well as AES-256 and Pyrite data protection technologies.

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