INTRODUCTION

    With Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs still not having established themselves in the global market due to certain issues (namely high temperatures and limited motherboard compatibility) it's no surprise that most manufacturers are still focusing on the development of Gen4 M.2 NVMe models. On top of that because of the countless consumers looking to equip their desktop and laptop systems with cost-effective models manufacturers are doing their best in order to add DRAM-models in their lines which combine good overall performance numbers at affordable prices. The brand new NV3 line by Kingston is just that and today with me I have the 2TB variant.

   Kingston Technology Europe Co LLP and Kingston Technology Company, Inc., are part of the same corporate group (“Kingston”). Kingston is the world’s largest independent manufacturer of memory products. From big data, to laptops and PCs, to IoT-based devices like smart and wearable technology, to design-in and contract manufacturing, Kingston helps deliver the solutions used to live, work and play. The world’s largest PC makers and cloud-hosting companies depend on Kingston for their manufacturing needs, and our passion fuels the technology the world uses every day. We strive beyond our products to see the bigger picture, to meet the needs of our customers and offer solutions that make a difference. To learn more about how Kingston Is With You, visit Kingston.com.

   The brand new NV3 line of Μ.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 Gen4 SSDs currently includes 3 different capacities (500GB/1TB/2TB - 4TB launching in Q4) all of which are based on the latest 12nm SM2268XT2 DRAM-less NAND flash controller by Silicon Motion. The SM2268XT2 is an NVMe 2.0 NAND controller that sports a dual-core ARM Cortex R8 CPU (4  channels up to 3,200 MT/s / 16 CE) and features their latest 4K+ LDPC engine together with HMB data path protection,  programmable RAID, global wear-levelling, real time AES 128/256-bit encryption, hardware SHA 384 and TRNG, secure boot for FW authentication and support for ONFI 5.0 and Toggle 3.0. Kingston has paired the Silicon Motion controller with BiCS6 162-layer 3D QLC NAND flash by KIOXIA allowing the 2TB variant to achieve speeds up to 6000MB/s in reads and 5000MB/s in writes. In terms of warranty the entire NV3 line is covered by 3-year limited one and as for durability numbers Kingston reports an MTBF (meantime between failures) of 2 million hours and a TBW (terabytes written) of  160 for the 500GB model, 320 for the 1TB model, 640 for the 2TB model and 1280 for the upcoming 4TB model. Worth pointing out is that the NV3 is a Multi-BOM (bill of materials) SSD meaning there might be more variants in the market as time goes by, both in terms of the NAND controller and the flash (so do keep this in mind). So, let's see just how the brand new NV3 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD by Kingston does.