Kingston NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2TB SSD Review

There are a lot of really good M.2 NVME SSDs on the market today, with some drives able to hit around 14000 MB/s, though while loading times are faster than ever, there is of course a downside; the cost. It’s also generally classed as overkill for the majority of users, especially those who aren’t able to utilise that raw unadulterated speed, with the main use cases that can harness the potential coming back way of more workstation related tasks such as calculations, rendering and video editing. These flagship drives can cost quite a lot, especially so when you want to pair that speed with larger capacities and powerful cooling solutions to maintain their speed. Plus, while we all want such speeds, we don’t all need such speeds, and that’s where the new Kingston NV3 SSD comes into play.

Kingston NV3

This is a PCIe 4.0 drive, so while not the fastest Gen5 hardware, Gen4 is certainly no slouch, so with that in mind, the NV3 is built for fast speeds but on a more reserved budget, so it maxes out at around 6000MB/s read and 5000MB/s write, which is around half of what we see from today’s flagship SSDs. However, that’s still more than 10 times the performance of traditional 2.5″ SSDs and around 50 times the speed of mechanical 3.5″ HDDs, so for those upgrading older systems, the performance uplift is still going to be rather significant and something that we’ve always tried to educate those on older hardware as being one of the best upgrades you can do for your system, at least in terms of noticeable speed increases. It really can be the difference between running a slow and bogged down laptop or desktop PC, and having that system feel fresh again by breathing a new lease of life into it, through what can be classed as a pretty simple and cost-effective upgrade.

PCIe Gen 4.0

The Kingston NV3 has something really strong going for it, because even though we have a 2TB capacity here, this is actually a single-sided drive, which utilises the common M.2 2280 form factor, so compatibility will be incredibly high, with broad support for most motherboards, slim form factor notebooks/laptops, consoles, and even handhealds, which is something that’s definitely seen a huge uptake in popularity as of late, thanks to devices like the Antec Core HS, among others.

While some PCIe Gen 4 drives on the market are faster, they generally come with large heatsinks and cooling solutions to keep temperature levels under control because as a drive increases in heat output, that generally leads to thermal throttling, which is likely the reason why Kingston have been quite reserved with keeping speeds under that, because again, that keeps temperatures down, without the need for a heatsink, and that also means that costs are kept down too.

The drive itself comes in a few variants, with 500GB, 1TB and 2TB currently available, and the promise of a 4TB in the near future though from what we can see, that’s not available in the retail channel just yet. For context, Kingston did produce a 4TB version of the older NV2 drive, so hopefully, it won’t be too long for the NV3 to get the same treatment, though I’m unsure if the 4TB will retain the same single-sided design or switch to a dual-sided design instead, though if the marketing message is anything to go by, then it makes sense for the larger capacity to maintain the same mantra. Prices (direct from Kingston’s website) are promising too, with the 500GB as low as $42.99, the 1TB at $64.99 and the 2TB coming in at $124.99.

Features & Specifications

• Form Factor: M.2 2280
• Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe
• Capacities:
  • 500GB
  • 1TB
  • 2TB
  • 4TB
• Data Transfer:
  • 500GB: 5,000/3,000 MB/s
  • 1TB: 6,000/4,000 MB/s
  • 2TB – 4TB: 6,000/5,000 MB/s
• NAND: 3D
• Storage Temperature: -40°C to 85°C
• Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C
• Dimensions: 22mm x 80mm x 2.2mm
• Weight: 7g
• Vibration Operating: 2.17G Peak (7-800Hz)
• Vibration Non-operating: 10G (10-1000Hz)
• Total Bytes Written (TBW):
  • 500GB: 160TB
  • 1TB: 320TB
  • 2TB: 640TB
  • 4TB: 1280TB
• MTBF: 2,000,000 hours