Kingston DC400 480GB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Kingston DC400 480GB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. IOMETER8. FIO - 4K Random Read Tests9. FIO - 4K Random Write Tests10. Performance Stability11. PCMark8 Storage Consistency12. Real Life File Testing13. Closing Thoughts14. View All Pages

Kingston's DC400 family of drives joins Kingston's Enterprise range and are aimed at entry-level data center use and while there are just two off the shelf capacities; 480GB and 960GB (with a third 1.6TB model due in early 2017), Kingston also offer several other optimised drives that are available only by special order.

 

The ability via the SSD Manager utility to manually adjust the Over Positioning segment, above the factory default (approx 7%) allows data center managers to better tune the drive depending on what workload or application that it's being used with. This ability gives the drive more flexibility as to which environments it can be used in. Generally setting the OP between the factory default 7% and 28% will yield better performance but over 28% performance may begin to suffer as the endurance of the drive increases.

As you might expect for a drive in this market segment it has a good degree of data protection built in. End-to-end data path protection, SmartRefresh and SmartECC.

The figures quoted by Kingston for the Sequential read/write performance of the 480GB DC400 are up to 555MB/s and 535MB/s respectively. Using the ATTO benchmark we managed to squeeze a little more read/write performance from the drive, reads coming in at 561MB/s and writes at 544MB/s. Similarly we were able to better the official random 4K figures of 99,000 IOPS for reads, the drive giving 99, 484 IOPS while the write score of 90,235 IOPS is a small improvement over the official 90,000 IOPS.

Kingston has provided power loss protection for the DC400 but only in the firmware. Firmware PFAIL ensures that the firmware can rebuild the mapping table when the power is restored.  This is better than nothing but not as effective as a bunch of quality capacitors on the PCB. We could understand this in a consumer drive but it is a little puzzling in a drive aimed at data center use, even if it's an entry-level model.

We found the 480GB DC400 for £176.99 (inc VAT) on Ebuyer HERE

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Pros

• Solid overall performance.
• Adjustable Over Positioning.
• 5-year warranty.

Cons

• Firmware only power loss management.

Kitguru says: The ability to manually adjust its Over Positioning segment to suit whatever it's being asked to run gives DC400 a competitive edge especially as it's aimed at the entry-level data center market.

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