Kingston KC600 1TB SSD Review

Kingston's latest 2.5in SSD is the KC600 which features a full security suite which should appeal to the business end of the market, if no-one else. The suite includes hardware-based XTS-AES 256-bit data encryption plusTCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive support. The KC600 range consists of three capacities; 256GB. 512GB, 1TB – with a fourth, flagship 2TB drive about to arrive very soon.

At the heart of the drive is a Silicon Motion SM2259 controller which looks after Micron 96-layer 3D TLC NAND. The SM2259 is a four-channel controller using a 32-bit RISC CPU that combines performance with low power consumption and supports QLC and TLC NAND. The controller uses the latest Silicon Motion NANDXtend, a proprietary ECC technology that uses LDPC hard and soft decoding as well as RAID protection, all of which enhance the P/E cycles of 3D NAND ensuring both data integrity and SSD lifespan.

Performance-wise Kingston quote Sequential read/write figures for the 1TB drive as up to 550MB/s and 520MB/s respectively. Incidentally, that 550MB/s read figure is the same across all the range as is the write speed with the exception of the 256GB drive where the figure drops to up to 500MB/s. We confirmed those figures with the ATTO benchmark, the review drive producing reads at 564MB/s with writes coming in at 519MB/s.

The official 4K random figures for the whole drive range are up to 90,000 IOPS reads and up to 80,000 IOPS for writes. We could confirm those figure under testing, the review drive producing a read performance of 91,818 IOPS with writes coming in at 83,555 IOPS.

Kingston offers the drive in two versions, standalone (like our review sample) or as part of a desktop/notebook upgrade kit. Apart from the drive, this comprehensive kit includes; 2.5” USB enclosure, 3.5” bracket and mounting screws, SATA power and data cable, 7mm to 9.5mm adapter and a download coupon for Acronis True Image HD cloning software. The upgrade kit adds around £25 to the price of a standalone drive.

We found the standalone 1TB KC600 on Box for £142.88 (inc VAT) HERE.

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Pros

• Available in an upgrade kit.
• Full disk encryption support.
• 5-year warranty.

Cons

• Not the fastest SATA drive we’ve seen.

KitGuru says: The inbuilt security that the Kingston KC600 comes with will appeal to the business sector, but for the consumer space the price could be lower as the drive is in a hugely competitive and crowded part of the market.

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