Kingston SSDNow UV400 480GB SATA III SSD Review

Introduction

The fastest growing segment in solid state storage is the value segment. Kingston already has a significant presence in the value segment of the SSD market and are looking to expand their reach further with their new Ultra-Value SATA III SSD; the UV400. The value segment of the SSD market, like the name suggests, is focused on delivering cost-effective solid state storage to the masses. This segment of the market is much more focused on price than performance, while at the same time reaping the benefits that are inherent to solid state storage.

Kingston has tapped cost effective well-performing components for the UV400. At the heart of it all is Marvell's 88SS1074 4-channel flash controller. We've seen this versatile controller at the heart of several recently released SSDs. Marvel's 88SS1074 controller is essentially a blank slate. Marvell sells the controller and buyers provide their own custom firmware. Marvell's controller-only sales model means we don't see 88SS1074 controlled SSDs coming from small companies, but rather large companies that have firmware engineering teams, such as Crucial, Western Digital, and Kingston.

The UV400 pairs the Marvell 88SS1074 controller with super-low-cost Toshiba 15nm 3-bit planar flash in TSOP packages and an LPDDR3 cache package. By going with super-low-cost TSOP packaged flash, Kingston sacrifices performance for cost. The UV400 is not as fast as similarly configured SSDs that employ higher bus speed BGA packaged flash, but it is cheaper, and that's exactly what Kingston is aiming for. The UV400 is up to 10X faster than mechanical hard drives, it is silent, and uses far less power than a conventional HDD.

Kingston has grown into the world's largest independent manufacturer of memory products, and the UV400 is selling like hotcakes, now let's see how it performs.

Specifications

Kingston UV400 480GB SATA III SSD:

• Sequential Read: up to 550 MB/s
• Sequential Write: up to 500 MB/s
• Max 4K Random Read Speed: up to 90,000 IOPS
• Max 4K Random Write Speed: up to 50,000 IOPS
• Endurance: 200TBW
• MTTF: 1 Million Hours
• Warranty: 3-Year Limited Warranty
• Active Power Consumption: .693W Avg.
• SMART
• TRIM
• Garbage Collection

Kingston's UV400 480GB SATA III SSD is currently selling for $116 at Amazon and Newegg.