INTRODUCTION

   M.2 PCIe SSDs (solid state drives) may hold the lead when it comes to performance compared to both M.2 and 2.5" SATA III models but the market still has need for the latter, especially of the 2.5" factor. This of course is due to the fact that 2.5" SSDs are far more compatible with older systems compared to M.2 drives (even more so M.2 PCIe drives) something which applies both for consumer and enterprise users. Kingston recently updated both their consumer and enterprise SSD lines with new 2.5” models one of which is the data center oriented DC450R model which is also what todays review’s all about.

   Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world’s largest independent manufacturer of memory products. Kingston designs, manufactures and distributes memory products for desktops, laptops, servers, printers, and Flash memory products for PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras, and MP3 players. Through its global network of subsidiaries and affiliates, Kingston has manufacturing facilities in California, Taiwan, China and sales representatives in the United States, Europe, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Australia, India, Taiwan, China, and Latin America.

   For their latest DC450R Data Center Enterprise line of SATA III 2.5" solid state drives (currently available in 480/960GB and 1.92/3.84TB capacities) Kingston chose to combine the PS3112-S12DC eight-channel NAND flash controller by Phison with Toshiba 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND flash and 512MB DDR4 SDRAM by Micron. The PS3112-S12DC NAND flash controller is still somewhat new and packs quite a few technologies aimed towards durability/endurance and performance such as SmartECC LDPC + RAID ECC (Phison’s LDPC 3.0 engine), end-to-end data protection (data path protection), power loss data protection (protects data from corruption and destruction in the case of unexpected power loss), cross die bad block management (prevents data from being written to bad blocks), SmartFlush (stores in-flight data on the cache for increased reliability), static and dynamic wear leveling (helps reduce premature NAND wear), S.M.A.R.T, TRIM, NCQ, AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption and support for TCG (Trusted Computing Group) Opal. Kingston covers the entire line of DC450R 2.5" SATA III SSDs with a limited 5-year warranty and reports write endurance numbers of 285TBW for the 480GB model, 582TBW for the 960GB model, 1301TBW for the 1.92TB model and 2823TBW for the 3.84TB model (all models feature an MTBF of 2 million hours).

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

THE DC450R 480GB

The DC450R 480GB arrived inside a blister package from where you can actually see the drive.

A few words about the product and its 5-year limited warranty are printed at the rear of the package in several languages.

Just like past models the top of the DC450R is almost entirely taken by a large sticker which contains the usual information such as the capacity of the drive, installed firmware, product serial number, barcode, electrical requirements and several certification logos.

At the base of the drive we just find mounting holes.

Typically, at the rear we find the SATA data and power connectors.

As expected from a drive that is available in capacities up to 3.84TB Kingston has used a full-sized PCB.

One of the sides is virtually empty and obviously populated in higher capacity models.

Everything is located on the other side including the Phison PS3112-S12DC controller, the 512MB DDR4 SDRAM module and eight 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND flash modules (64GB in capacity each).

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   After over 10 years of testing solid state drives, we’ve concluded that it's almost impossible for any single benchmark suite to accurately measure their performance and that's why in certain benchmark suites we see amazing read/write performance numbers with some drives while in others things are quite different. The reason behind this is that some benchmarking suites are configured to read and write random chunks of data while others read and write constant (sequential) ones. So that's why i always use a very wide selection of benchmarking suites including AIDA64, HD Tach RW, HD Tune Pro, Crystal Disk Mark, Sisoftware Sandra Pro, AS SSD, IOmeter and ATTO. To get the most accurate results each test gets repeated a total of 6 times with the average performance numbers recorded into our charts*. Also, as of February 25th 2015 our results will also include the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) IOMeter tests. These tests include a 12 Hour write test used to “simulate” performance degradation over time and a mixed workload test which basically shows what you can expect when using an SSD continuously for roughly two hours. Unfortunately, due to the time required for these tests we repeat them a total of 3 times and not 6 as the above.

   Many people have made inquiries about our charts in the past so once again please do keep in mind that the Charts have the average performance numbers of each drive recorded and not the peak (highest) ones. Also, although every single one of these programs can help potential buyers choose the right drive for their needs you should also remember that from any kind of benchmark up to real world usage the gap is not small (and usually most differences will go unnoticed by most people). All tests were performed in a fresh Windows 10 Pro x64 installation with every update installed up to the date of this review.

* Since November 2018 our SSD comparison charts have been divided to 2.5” and M.2 models to reduce their growing size.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA PRO / CRYSTAL DISK MARK X64

TEST RESULTS – AS SSD / IOMETER

TEST RESULTS – IOMETER SNIA

CONCLUSION

   The DC450R 480GB is part of the “entry-level” line of enterprise grade SSDs by Kingston and so we didn’t expect miracles when it comes to performance. Because of that even the consumer grade KC600 model trade blows with it and even surpasses it in some of our tests. This of course doesn’t come as a surprise considering that the SATA interface doesn’t have much more to offer in terms of data throughput. What does matter however in this regard (and with every enterprise grade model out there) is our IOMeter tests (both regular and SNIA ones) and there the DC450R does extremely well (i have to admit however that we were a bit surprised to see that the KC600 did even better in our 12 hour endurance test). Another matter is capacity and with capacities up to 3.84TB (the Phison PS3112-S12DC controller supports capacities up to 8TB so we may also see those by Kingston in the near future) it’s certainly ideal for use not only in data centers but also desktop computers. Unfortunately the DC450R doesn't come with tantalum capacitors for extra power loss protection which is just about the only drawback we can think of.

   As i type this review the Kingston DC450R 480GB Data Center Enterprise SSD retails for USD83.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 82.90Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price tag which is very close to that of the consumer grade KC600 512GB model. On top of that add the enterprise grade features offered by the PS3112-S12DC controller, the 2 million hours MTBF and the 5-year limited warranty and the end result is certainly worth our Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Performance
- Build Quality / Durability (2 Million Hours MTBF / 285TBW)
- Features Set
- 5 Year Limited Warranty
- Sustained SNIA Performance
- Available in 480/960/1920/3840GB Capacities
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- Firmware Based Power Loss Protection