Kingston Quietly Adds the NV3 to its SSD Lineup

[TheLostSwede]

Kingston's NV2 NVMe SSD has been a popular budget choice that has offered some of the best price/performance ratio in its segment of the market. Now, Kingston has quietly added its replacement, the NV3 to its website and that entails a wide range of upgrades over the NV2. The Kingston NV2 came in a range of different variations with multiple different controllers and NAND types and so far the company hasn't revealed which controller or what NAND the NV3 will feature. However, the company lists 3D NAND with a sequential read speeds of 6,000 MB/s for the 1 TB and up SKUs which is a huge improvement over the NV2 which topped out at 3,500 MB/s. Write speeds top out at 5,000 MB/s, but this is limited to the 2 and 4 TB SKUs, but it's nearly twice that of the 2 TB NV2 SKU. The 1 TB SKU is also seeing almost a doubling in terms of write speeds over the NV2. The 500 GB SKU is seeing more modest performance improvements, but it's still getting a decent performance uplift.

Initially, Kingston will launch 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB SKUs, with the 4 TB SKU following in Q4 this year. Endurance remains the same as for the NV2, with the NV3 starting out at 160 TBW for the 500 GB SKU, which then doubles for each increase in size and tops out at 1280 TBW for the 4 TB SKU. Kingston has as yet to officially announce the drive, but some online retailers claim to be able to ship the NV3 in four to five days time, suggesting that the launch is imminent. Pricing appears to start at US$50 for the 500 GB SKU, which increases to US$70 for the 1 TB SKU, with the 2 TB SKU jumping to US$139 from the same retailer. This places the NV3 slightly higher than the current retail price of the NV2, which is hardly a surprise, considering it delivers better performance. All SKUs come with a three year warranty.



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[Chaitanya]

Unfortunately these bottom of the barrel drives will be in a lot of OEM systems and given Kingstons habit of bait and switch best to avoid these like a plague.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Unfortunately thess bottom of the barrel drives will be in a lot of OEM systems and given Kingstons habit of bait and switch best to avoid these like a plague.

Eh cheap enough. Works. Not every PC needs high-performance SSDs, I'd use these without thinking twice. Discounted previous-generation WD Black drives won't be around forever

 

[ARF]

Eh cheap enough. Works. Not every PC needs high-performance SSDs, I'd use these without thinking twice. Discounted previous-generation WD Black drives won't be around forever

Only the Silicon Power and Lexar drives are worth it. For PCIe 3, ADATA XPG Gammix, too.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Only the Silicon Power and Lexar drives are worth it. For PCIe 3, ADATA XPG Gammix, too.

Adata's lower end drives are just about the same quality as these. Same for the WD Green lineup. They'll be a-OK for the vast majority of PCs.

 

[ARF]

Adata's lower end drives are just about the same quality as these. Same for the WD Green lineup. They'll be a-OK for the vast majority of PCs.

Look at this https://www.xpg.com/en/xpg/596

 

[ymdhis]

Only SSD I ever had a problem with was Kingston. And it wasn't even an obvious fault, but something that required weeks to figure out. The firmware updater was also a joke; it was a 700MB linux live cd that ran the updater.

Never buying a Kingston SSD again.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Only SSD I ever had a problem with was Kingston. And it wasn't even an obvious fault, but something that required weeks to figure out. The firmware updater was also a joke; it was a 700MB linux live cd that ran the updater.

Never buying a Kingston SSD again.

That sounds like an old SATA drive, many companies had similar firmware update procedures back then.

Not going to say that Kingston has a great solution now, but it's all Windows based.

Compared to Solidigm it's a joke.

 

[Knight47]

Eh cheap enough. Works. Not every PC needs high-performance SSDs, I'd use these without thinking twice. Discounted previous-generation WD Black drives won't be around forever

I only checked 4TB drives, MP44 is cheaper and NM790, VP4300 Lite costs just a bit more and you get higher TBW and guaranteed TLC, not crap QLC that drops to HDD speeds

 

[mechtech]

........................with the 4 TB SKU following in Q4 this year.............................nice...............

Endurance remains the same as for the NV2, with the NV3 starting out at 160 TBW for the 500 GB SKU, which then doubles for each increase in size and tops out at 1280 TBW for the 4 TB SKU........................not so great

if it comes with a 5-year warranty and the price is right.................

 

[SL2]

I've never understood why the logo is a head without a forehead and seemigly much of its brain gone. Doesn't go well with the idea of remembering or storing data.

Edit:
"It was based on the original advertising campaign of Kingston, which was launched in 1989. That was an image of half of the head open where the additional memory devices were being installed, and it was saying “Improve your memory”."

 

[Wirko]

Also the NV2 was TLC at launch. The 4TB version still is TLC only according to TPU's database (which might be incomplete though). Edit: no, it isn't.

 

[JohH]

The endurance is very low. It causes me to worry.

 

[_roman_]

I read that the specs changes after a while with certain brands like Kingston.

I'm not that happy with the firmware updater tool of my Corsair MP600 PRO NVME. Windows only - outdated User interface - did not found any updates. I prefer a 700 MB Linux Live ISO instead that works.

I prefer a bootable ISO instead of a Windows only solution. I have Windows only installed for gaming. The computer is used for other more important stuff also.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Also the NV2 was TLC at launch. The 4TB version still is TLC only according to TPU's database (which might be incomplete though).

There's are four QLC versions as well. Never even heard about the controller in the fourth one.

Kingston NV2 1 TB Specs

1 TB, QLC, PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2 2280

www.techpowerup.com

Kingston NV2 1 TB Specs

1 TB, QLC, PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2 2280

www.techpowerup.com

Kingston NV2 1 TB Specs

1 TB, QLC, PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2 2280

www.techpowerup.com

Kingston NV2 1 TB Specs

1 TB, QLC, PCIe 4.0 x4, M.2 2280

www.techpowerup.com

if it comes with a 5-year warranty and the price is right.................

Three year warranty, last line in the news post.

I read that the specs changes after a while with certain brands like Kingston.

I'm not that happy with the firmware updater tool of my Corsair MP600 PRO NVME. Windows only - outdated User interface - did not found any updates. I prefer a 700 MB Linux Live ISO instead that works.

I prefer a bootable ISO instead of a Windows only solution. I have Windows only installed for gaming. The computer is used for other more important stuff also.

The NV2 has something like 12 different variant...

I read that the specs changes after a while with certain brands like Kingston.

The NV2 has something like 12 different variants...

 

[W1zzard]

Pinged Kingston to ask for a sample, they probably won't sample it, so I'll just buy one

 

[Chrispy_]

Reviews of these are basically pointless because unless two people buy drives at the same time, they're unlikely to receive the same product.

Hopefully they just call it QLC from the start this time, rather than sending out half-decent TLC samples and then immediately switching to QLC after the review cycle has finished.

 

[yfn_ratchet]

These had a spot in the market when they were the absolute cheapest that money could buy, but at this point there's other budget drives that I have a much easier time trusting (love you Teamgroup, Lexar). This is just... kind of sad. At the very least don't pretend that these aren't half the price a pop to make.

 

[chrcoluk]

Kingston pre order bonus - get in before the bait and switch.

 

[Chrispy_]

These had a spot in the market when they were the absolute cheapest that money could buy, but at this point there's other budget drives that I have a much easier time trusting (love you Teamgroup, Lexar). This is just... kind of sad. At the very least don't pretend that these aren't half the price a pop to make.

Yeah, you don't even have to go to Chinese NAND - the WD 580 has been priced identically to the NV2 over here for some time now and it's just vastly superior with a guaranteed WD controller and Sandisk TLC NAND, rather than some random controller of the week and QLC.

 

[chrcoluk]

That sounds like an old SATA drive, many companies had similar firmware update procedures back then.

Not going to say that Kingston has a great solution now, but it's all Windows based.

View attachment 357470
Compared to Solidigm it's a joke.

View attachment 357471

Interesting thing about the Kingston software (a good thing) is that it gives you an easy look at reallocated sectors, I have never seen that before on vendor software without manually checking the SMART counters.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yeah, you don't even have to go to Chinese NAND - the WD 580 has been priced identically to the NV2 over here for some time now and it's just vastly superior with a guaranteed WD controller and Sandisk TLC NAND, rather than some random controller of the week and QLC.

It almost feels like WD made too many of its better drives that somehow didn't sell for the asking price...

 

[Wirko]

There's competition from the brand called Kingston, too. The 2TB KC3000 has often dropped below 150 € on amazon.de in the last month or two, that's 138 US dollars with VAT subtracted. On that model, bait-and-switch means replacing Micron TLC with Kioxia TLC - that's the worst known case.

The KC3500 will probably be announced soon, we'll see what corners will Kingston be cutting.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Not going to say that Kingston has a great solution now, but it's all Windows based.

Windows 95 called.... And they want their interface back.

 

[trsttte]

Yeah this can go rot in a garbage pile. Competition in the market is necessary and very desirable but we don't need 20 companies repackaging the same chips with unreliable specs sheets.

For me it's either first party - that is WD, Samsung, Kioxia, SKhynix, Crucial - or nothing.