Kingston Technology, one of the market leaders for SSD, has now launched their new consumer SSD drives – the UV500. It comes in three form factors: 2.5-inch, mSATA, and M.2 (using AHCI protocol, not NVME). Kingston also launched the 2.5″ bundle kit that has everything you need to transfer your existing data, including a 3.5″ drive mount, a SATA data cable, Acronis data migration software, and a hard drive enclosure.

BASIC FEATURES

Featuring Marvell’s 88SS1074 controller and Toshiba 256Gb BICs 3D TLC NAND, the UV500 is promises to deliver read and write speeds up to 520MB/s and 500MB/s, respectively. The 120GB version will give you much less write speed at 320 MB/s. This is relatively standard for most drives in this grade. Random 4K read/write will vary from 79,000 IOPS read, and 18,000-45,000 IOPS write, depending on the capacity. All those basically mean that the UV500 is indeed an entry-level SSD.

Capacities for the 2.5″ drive are 120GB to 960GB. For the M.2, it’s 120GB to 480GB. And lastly, for the mSATA, it’s 120GB up to 480GB.

 

Based on the specifications, its performance should be actually comparable with the likes of the Crucial MX500, Intel 540 series, Samsung 860 Evo, and the WD Blue SSD’s. This also adds quite a strong lineup in their current crop of consumer drives of Kingston. They still chose to maintain their fast-selling entry-level SSD, the A400, perhaps to compete with the popular WD Green.

3D NAND FEATURE

Almost all SSD manufacturers are launching new SSD’s into the market now; however, there is almost zero differentiation between most consumer-grade, entry-level SSD’s. In addition, most major brands, including Kingston’s UV500, already transitioned into 3D TLC NAND, which is a higher-density storage technology, capable of storing up to 3X the previous 2D NAND technology.

Think of it as laying out cards – instead of putting them side by side, 3D NAND enabled stacking the cards instead. Thus, this stacking enables up 32 levels of thinner silicon, that allows much bigger capacities into much smaller space, while keeping costs much lower.

However, the technology is still in its infancy, and it requires extreme precision on the manufacturing side. This is most likely the reason why these SSD’s, including Kingston’s UV500, despite using 3D NAND, have not seen any major price drop that can finally compete with good old hard disk drives.  On the bright side, trends have shown that pricing is improving drastically, and we might just see the UV500 and its SSD competitors also dipping into sub-$20 territory for a 120GB capacity soon.

 

DATA SECURITY

What makes the Kingston UV500 special are two very specific things relating to data security. It boasts native 256-bit hardware encryption, which means that the drive uses a 256-bit key to encrypt and decrypt the data. This particular feature is not usually found in most SSD’s, and it is a bit peculiar for Kingston to include such a feature in a consumer-level drive.

Another security feature of the UV500 is compliance with TCG Opal 2.0 Storage Specifications. This means that the UV500 is classified as a Self-Encrypting Drive (SED). As a result, this is great option for consumers who would need a more secure option for storing their data.

On the other side, while all these data security features are a huge plus for the UV500 compared to other competitors, most consumers might find these unnecessary.

 

WARRANTY

The UV500 comes with an improved 5-year warranty. Thus, you can be sure that Kingston will support any failure that happens before the said date.

 

PRICING AND LOCAL AVAILABILITY

No indication yet where and how is the price of this locally, but if the UV400 is any indication, it will be found in most IT shops nationwide.

 

Find out more about the Kingston UV500 here and full specifications below

Full Specifications:

• Form factor: 2.5″/M.2 2280/mSATA
• Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0 (3Gb/s)
• Capacities:
  • 2.5″: 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB, 1920GB*
  • M.2 2280: 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB*
  • mSATA: 120GB, 240GB, 480GB
• Controller: Marvell 88SS1074
• NAND: 3D TLC
• Baseline Performance:
  • Data Transfer (ATTO)
    120GB — up to 520/320MB/s
    240GB — up to 520/500MB/s
    480GB — up to 520/500MB/s
    960GB — up to 520/500MB/s
  • Maximum Random 4k Read/Write (IOMETER)
    120GB — up to 79,000/18,000 IOPS
    240GB — up to 79,000/25,000 IOPS
    480GB — up to 79,000/35,000 IOPS
    960GB — up to 79,000/45,000 IOPS
• Power Consumption:
  • 0.195W Idle / 0.5W Avg / 1.17W (MAX) Read / 2.32 W (MAX) Write
• Storage temperature: -40°C~85°C
• Operating temperature: 0°C~70°C
• Dimensions:
  100.1mm x 69.85mm x 7mm (2.5″)
  80mm x 22mm x 3.5mm (M.2)
  50.8mm x 29.85mm x 4.85mm (mSATA)
• Weight:
  120GB – 480GB — 41g (2.5″)
  960GB — 57g (2.5″)
  120GB — 6.6g (M.2)
  240GB — 6.7g (M.2)
  480GB — 7.7g (M.2)
  120GB — 6.2g (mSATA)
  240GB – 480GB — 6.7g (mSATA)
• Vibration operating: 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)
• Vibration non-operating: 20G Peak (10–2000Hz)
• Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF
• Warranty/support: Limited 5-year warranty with free technical support
• Total Bytes Written (TBW):
  120GB — 60TB
  240GB — 100TB
  480GB — 200TB
  960GB — 480TB