Kingspec Intros Z1 Series Portable SSDs
Chinese storage manufacturer Kingspec today rolled out the Z1 line of portable SSDs. These are essentially M.2 NVMe drives strapped onto a USB 3.1 to M.2 PCIe adapter. A star-attraction here is Kingspec's choice of pure SLC NAND flash. They don't directly plug into ports, but rather come with a USB 3.1 type-A to type-C cable, with a single cable being used for both power and host connectivity. The drive comes in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. The 128 GB variant offers sequential speeds of 700-800 MB/s reads, with up to 550-600 MB/s writes; while the 256 GB variant is slightly faster, with 720-850 MB/s reads, and 620-750 MB/s writes. Their 4K random-access speeds at QD64 is rated at 33,000/42,000 IOPS (reads/writes) for both the variants. The company didn't reveal pricing.