Kioxia BG4 1TB M.2 2230 SSD Review

Pricing and Final Thoughts

The BG4 from Kioxia is mostly for system integrators, notebook builders, and similar companies. As such, it can be tricky to find for sale anywhere. This review is more for those who get a device with the drive built-in, letting you know what you get before you get it.

Final Thoughts

This was a really fun review for me to do. Granted, a storage review isn’t one I break down laughing while doing, but it is something different than what I usually do. The tiny form factor and one-package design make the drive quite unique, especially when we consider that it offers 1TB capacity.

Now, was this the best drive I’ve ever reviewed? Of course it wasn’t. But was it a bad drive? Of course it wasn’t. This kind of drive isn’t built to break any speed records. Instead, the Kioxia BG4 is built to provide you with a stable, tiny, and power effective storage that still delivers better than traditional performance – all while offering a lot of capacity too. What’s not to love?

The 1-chip design allows manufacturers to keep their devices small, thin, and lightweight, all while providing modern NVMe performance and large capacity. I’m sure that we’ll see this kind of drive within many 2-in-1 devices.

You might have noticed that my usual AIDA64 and IOmeter tests are missing from this review. There is a simple explanation for that and that is that AIDA64 refused to do the write tests on this drive which in return means that I couldn’t run the rest either as they’re dependent on that being run first for consistency.

Should I Purchase One?

If you got a desktop system and you’re building your own from scratch, then probably no. You can find other better solutions in the 2280 form factor. However, you can safely go for any device which comes with the Kioxia BG4 built-in. It will deliver a performance you’ll love.

Pros

• Tiny and lightweight
• Up to 1TB capacity
• NVMe performance from a single chip
• Low cost/large capacity thanks to 96-layer BiCS NAND

Cons

• Not widely available
• 1-chip and DRAM-less design make it more average than speed breaking.

“Kioxia made a really cool NVMe drive for space restrained devices such as 2-in-1s. A couple of square centimetres allow you to have 1TB speedy capacity.”

Thank you Kioxia for providing us with this sample.