Kingston KC2000 1TB SSD Review

Rating: 8.0.

The latest addition to Kingston's range of SSD's is the KC2000 M.2 NVMe drive. Sitting under both the company's consumer and business banners – the KC2000 uses the latest Toshiba 96-layer NAND in combination with Silicon Motion's newest SM2262EN controller.

As well as using the latest Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer 3D TLC NAND and Silicon Motion's SM2262EN controller, it's also a self-encrypting drive using 256-bit AES Hardware-based encryption to support end-to-end data protection. Currently, there are four capacities making up the KC2000 product line; 250GB, 500GB, 1TB (the drive we are reviewing here) and the flagship 2TB model.

Performance wise the 1TB and 2TB drives have the same up to 3,200MB/s Sequential read and up to 2,200MB/s write ratings. The two smaller drives in the range share the same 3,000MB/s read figure with the 500GB drive rated as up to 2,000MB/s for writes with the 250GB drive making do with a 1,100MB/s write rating.

Random 4K performance for the 1TB drive is stated as up to 350,000 IOPS for reads and up to 275,000 IOPS for writes. The 2TB model is a slower drive with reads and writes both quoted as up to 250,000 IOPS. The 250GB and 500GB drives share the same up to 350,000 IOPS read rating with writes given as up to 200,000 IOPS for the 250GB drive and 275,000 IOPS for the 500GB drive.

The endurance figure given for the 1TB drive is 600TBW and Kingston back the drive with a 5-year warranty.

Physical Specifications:
Usable Capacities: 1TB.
NAND Components: Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer TLC NAND.
NAND Controller: Silicon Image SM2262EN.
Cache: 1GB DDR3L
Interface: PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 NVMe.
Form Factor: 2280 M.2.
Dimensions: 80 x 22 x 3.5mm.
Drive Weight: 10g.

Firmware Version: S2681101

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