Équilon's Review
For additional storage space for general use and/or gaming, the Kingston NV2 offers average performance at a very low price. The main disadvantages are the cache size and the 3-year warranty, which is short compared to competitors' offerings at the same price.
This product is primarily targeted at customers with light to moderate usage needs.
+ | Good price for a PCIe Gen 4 drive |
- | 3-year warranty (market average is 5 years) |
About the Product
Released in the fall quarter of 2022, the Kingston NV2 aims to be faster than its predecessor, the NV1. With a limited 3-year warranty included with purchase, Kingston is targeting compact and portable computer users. This model is available in 5 versions: 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB (tested), 2 TB, and 4 TB. In the M.2 2280 form factor, the NV2 features an NVMe 1.4 interface and PCIe Gen 4 x4 connectivity.
With these specifications, Kingston aims to market the most affordable PCIe Gen 4 drive. To achieve this, Kingston does not guarantee a specific controller on the drive but instead ensures minimum speeds as outlined in its specifications. This unique approach means two models could have different performance levels, as observed in results from several other reviews.
Product Overview
Brand | Kingston | Interface | PCIe Gen 4x4, NVME 1.4 |
Model | NV2 1Tb | Controller | SiliconMotion SM2267xTv |
Product # | SNV2S1000G | Release Date | September 2022 |
Capacity | 1 Tb (954 Gb usable) | Warranty | Limited to 3 years |
Form Factor | M.2 2280 |
Tests & Analyses
Random I/O Test Tools used: HWINFO64 & CrystalDiskMark
The Random I/O test benchmarks the drive’s performance in various multitasking scenarios or applications. It first measures 100% write speed and then 100% read speed.
The drive achieved an average read speed of 826.62 MB/s over 120 GB and an average write speed of 1314.21 MB/s over 181 GB.
Write speed decreases as the data size increases, eventually stabilizing at an average floor of 1200 MB/s once the cache is full (see cache test).
Note: Spikes in read and write tests are due to processor behavior that could not be isolated.
Sequential I/O Test Tools used: HWINFO64 & CrystalDiskMark
The Sequential I/O test benchmarks the drive in continuous write scenarios, such as file transfers, streaming, database operations, etc. It measures both read and write speeds in these environments.
Scenario 1
This test measures sequential read and write performance for a 4 GB file.
The drive achieved an average read speed of 2497.99 MB/s over 343 GB and an average write speed of 2660.07 MB/s over 346 GB.
Compared to the Random test, speeds remain consistent during writes but gradually decrease toward the end for reads.
Note: Spikes in read and write speeds are due to processor behavior that could not be isolated.
Cache test Tools used: HWINFO64 & IOmeter
Most SSDs utilize pseudo-SLC caching, which isn’t reflected in the drive’s write specifications. Large sequential writes can significantly impact speed once the cache size is exceeded.
We used IOmeter to configure a sequential write test with the following parameters:.
Queue depth : 32
Block size : 1MB
The drive initially writes at an average speed of 2550 MB/s, maintaining this until 259 GB, after which the average write speed drops to 140 MB/s.
Some random peaks between 1000 MB/s and 1500 MB/s were observed, but these were brief and did not substantially affect performance.
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