Kingston KC3000 2 TB

[W1zzard]

The Kingston KC3000 is built using the Phison E18 controller and Micron's best 176-layer TLC NAND flash. In our performance testing, the drive can beat the Samsung 980 Pro and is the fastest SSD we ever tested. It shares that performance throne with the WD Black SN850.

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[Panther_Seraphin]

How long before Kingston start cost cutting this model though.

 

[Mussels]

Looks like a great top tier SSD for the current market (as long as they dont suddenly swap parts)

One thing though - the conclusion mentions pseudo-SLC cache, but i dont see it mentioned at all earlier in the review. I feel like thats something that should be brought up and detailed.

 

[Bruno_O]

regarding throttling, for people that have MB heatsinks, should they remove the thin aluminum cover to install the heatsink, or just put on top of it? thermal paste?

 

[Wooden Law - Black]

regarding throttling, for people that have MB heatsinks, should they remove the thin aluminum cover to install the heatsink, or just put on top of it?

Do you mean the SSD’s label? If so, no, don’t remove it, just put the heatsink on it. If you remove the SSD’s label you will invalidate the warranty.

 

[Readlight]

Atlast fast as DDR2 transfer speed. 10-12 times more expensive than hard drive.

 

[Octopuss]

I don't understand why they won't make 500GB SLC only SSD if they can afford to cram 600GB+ SLC cache onto this.

 

[Micko]

What would happen if one would short stroke a drive like this, i.e. make only one partition of 640gb ? Would a drive use only SLC cache in this case, or there would not be any difference in performance ?

 

[Mussels]

regarding throttling, for people that have MB heatsinks, should they remove the thin aluminum cover to install the heatsink, or just put on top of it? thermal paste?

thermal paste is a bad idea for NVME drives, that little thermal sticker is fine to leave attached.

What would happen if one would short stroke a drive like this, i.e. make only one partition of 640gb ? Would a drive use only SLC cache in this case, or there would not be any difference in performance ?

That's what i'd like explained too, with my question above about the psuedo cache. If you just left the latter part of the drive unpartitioned, could you not turn it to an SLC drive?

I don't understand why they won't make 500GB SLC only SSD if they can afford to cram 600GB+ SLC cache onto this.
I

I think (and hence why i asked for more info, i may be wrong) that being a TLC drive they simply use the first layer til they run out, treating it like SLC and getting SLC performance. Then, as it fills up past that it changes the chips one at a time from SLC to TLC, trading speed for the extra storage.

 

[Wooden Law - Black]

I don't understand why they won't make 500GB SLC only SSD if they can afford to cram 600GB+ SLC cache onto this.

Using SLC flash is not the same as using a dynamic SLC cache. There’s a reason if there isn’t drives with 3D SLC flash, and the reason is that 3D SLC flash is very expensive. Beyond that, SLC flash has a lower density than other types of flash (MLC, TLC and QLC).

 

[W1zzard]

One thing though - the conclusion mentions pseudo-SLC cache, but i dont see it mentioned at all earlier in the review. I feel like thats something that should be brought up and detailed.

We have a whole page on that? https://www.techpowerup.com/review/kingston-kc3000/5.html

regarding throttling, for people that have MB heatsinks, should they remove the thin aluminum cover to install the heatsink, or just put on top of it? thermal paste?

Makes no difference I'd say. So for warranty reasons leave the drive as-is. And no need for thermal paste. The heat output of those SSDs is quite low

I don't understand why they won't make 500GB SLC only SSD if they can afford to cram 600GB+ SLC cache onto this.

Because it would cost too much. 500 GB SLC = 1.5 TB TLC

What would happen if one would short stroke a drive like this, i.e. make only one partition of 640gb ? Would a drive use only SLC cache in this case, or there would not be any difference in performance ?

Depends on the algorithms, but I think it'll probably end up running in SLC mode all the time, or close-to

 

[zlobby]

How long before Kingston start cost cutting this model though.

Yeah, that price tag!

Depends on the algorithms, but I think it'll probably end up running in SLC mode all the time, or close-to

No, not in Chia plotting it won't.

 

[W1zzard]

No, not in Chia plotting it won't.

Ah so that's why people suddenly want SLC SSDs

 

[Mussels]

We have a whole page on that? https://www.techpowerup.com/review/kingston-kc3000/5.html

That's... IO latency? Not what this psuedo cache is?

 

[W1zzard]

That's... IO latency? Not what this psuedo cache is?

Sorry wrong link: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/kingston-kc3000/6.html

SLC cache = pSLC = pseudo-SLC

 

[mechtech]

Talk about steep performance price premium. I just got a WD blue sata 2TB for $225 CAD. For documents and photos and mass storage great.

 

[Zareek]

Do you mean the SSD’s label? If so, no, don’t remove it, just put the heatsink on it. If you remove the SSD’s label you will invalidate the warranty.

Not is the US. I'm sure you'd need the label for the serial number but removing a warranty void stickers is not grounds for refusing to honor a warranty in the United States. This is according to a memorandum by the FTC in 2018. It's one of the few consumer protection laws the US government has done a good job with in recent years.

That being said, I wouldn't bother removing the sticker, the increase in heat transfer wouldn't be worth the bother anyway. On top of that, the controller is the only part that really requires cooling. According to the paper linked here, too much cooling for NAND can have a negative effect on it.

 

[zlobby]

Ah so that's why people suddenly want SLC SSDs

Among other things, yes.

 

[tomfuegue]

Great SSD !.

Thx.

 

[Selaya]

more overpriced pcie 4.0 the world doesn't need
at the very least this one's topping performance charts tho, so there's that

 

[Harakhti]

Well, the review came and it did deliver! Price is performance-relative to the KC2500, at least in Hungary...also about 10% over said competing Samsung models, but I can't complain - having more options on the market is always nice.

 

[Mussels]

Sorry wrong link: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/kingston-kc3000/6.html

SLC cache = pSLC = pseudo-SLC

okay, i missed it due to looking for different terms to what that content was titled

 

[W1zzard]

okay, i missed it due to looking for different terms to what that content was titled

Any suggestions how to reword?

 

[Mussels]

Any suggestions how to reword?

SLC cache and sustained write performance?

It's two different things covered in the one area for sure, this drive has a massive SLC cache, but drives without an SLC cache or much smaller ones can compete equally so it's not just a single metric - more of a comparison between the two... i'm far from an expert on these topics, i tend to use the title of the page and paragraphs to decide if i want to read the content


These drives make the Intel 6000P i have in my USB enclosure look really sad, i can see its writes dip to 50MB/s at times -.-

 

[Octopuss]

I wonder what the performance is like on the smaller capacity version. Proportionally good maybe?
I already have HP EX950 as my system drive, but this one looks interesting.