SNV2S/2000G
Controller: Phison E21T
Memory: Kioxia/Toshiba 112L BiCS5 TLC
DRAM Cache: n/a
Sequential Read: 3500 MB/s
Sequential Write: 2800 MB/s
Random Read: n/a
Random Write: n/a
Endurance (TBW): 640 TB
Warranty: 3 Years
Kingston NV2 M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2TB SSD $139 + Delivery ($0 MEL C&C) @ BPC Tech
780
dan39 on 04/04/2023 - 08:46 bpctech.com.au (788 clicks)
Last edited 04/04/2023 - 10:54 by 1 other user
Last edited 04/04/2023 - 10:54 by 1 other user
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It's certainly nice to have the key specs listed in the post, but remember this is all voluntary and it takes time to gather and verify the info. So, if it's time consuming for people to post deals, then they probably can't be bothered. People should be doing their own research.
Should be the manufacturers and retailers providing the information like in the post.
It's getting cheaper and cheaper!
Good price but I want 4TB
realistically I'm keen for 2TB to be <$100, wouldn't mind just being able to install and switch between games without worrying about space
So cheap
Got one, thanks OP!
This SSD does not have a DRAM cache. That's probably why it's cheaper. Cheap for a reason as it's not so good.
This is a review. It states no DRAM cache. Apparently it has bottom of the barrel performance.
These entry to lower-mid range no longer have dram, they use the system ram. Even drives like the WD Black SN770 are dramless.
it's not a good thing either. I'd rather have a drive with real DRAM if I want to use it for boot drive
Its not a good thing, but you ain't going to get DRAM and TLC at this price point.
DRAM mainly for sustained write. For most use cases including boot drive DRAM-less is fine. Can't even tell the difference without benchmarking.
@deeby: I think you are mixing up DRAM and SLC cache? cache helps with writes, DRAM holds mapping tables
writing them back to SSD increases SSD wear, holding them in DRAM cache is optimal, holding them in host system RAM is an option for DRAMless drives (not all) but it's still slower than DRAM
OS drive load is a lot of little reads and writes, plus a lot of changes to said mapping tables, hence it's a good idea to have DRAM on your OS SSD
but sure enough, you can use any SSD as a boot drive if you so wish, no one is stopping you. it's just it will wear quicker if it has no DRAM. it might be fine if it does host them in host system RAM, but still will be slower than an SSD with DRAM. will you notice the difference? I don't think anyone will, unless you sit there with a timer
Thats the THG review. Also look at Amazon reviews which are mass reviews. Its not as bad as it looks. Get a cheap 6$ heatsink from ali and put it on the SSD and you wont notice much of a difference between this and many other SSDs out there for storage and gaming performance.
These are not great for boot drives tho, but nothing wrong in using it as one.
The Toms Hardware review seems to be of a completely different variant of the drive, compared to the one listed in the description.
Toms Hardware reviewed a 2TB drive with QLC flash and a SMI SM2267XT. The drive in this deal is a 2TB drive with TLC flash and a Phision E21T. The drive in this deal will be vastly better than the one Toms Hardware reviewed, assuming it is actually TLC and an E21T.
You don't actually know what you will get though. Amazon descriptions are always iffy at best. Once upon a time in a land far far away, it might have been the more expensive TLC, but now?
Silent changes are rife with SSDs, Crucial with their P2s, WD with their SN550s, Kingston with these NV2, the list just goes on.
They release with better parts, get the reviews out, then silently change. But because it can still hit the claimed speed for a microsecond before the cache is exhausts, they say its ALL GOOD.
Any good for a boot drive?
It doesn't have a DRAM cache. Do you need an SSD with a DRAM cache for the boot drive?.
yes, very much preferable
This is not entirely correct, you would never notice a difference between a DRAM drive vs hmb drive unless you were using it for high production workloads (unless its a really cheap drive, this one might be okay depending on the components it has). Even then, a high quality SLC dramless drive (e.g. SN770) could outperform a drive with dram cache.
@Wicko: yep, there's that. but I don't feel like it's a great idea to use hmb as opposed to DRAM, so I just get DRAM SSD for OS drives
purely for storage - doesn't matter at all
Don't need DRAM if you never turn your PC off
/ss
Controller: Phison E21T
OP, you really need to provide concrete evidence on that. I could not find a 2TB NV2 that's E21T last year and the impression I have is that it will be even harder now. While it could still be possible to get the E21 version of 1TB here, it is incorrect to assume the same for 2TB.
Memory: Kioxia/Toshiba 112L BiCS5 TLC
That is also brave to quote it. Tom's Hardware already reported QLC version and pointed out that this component swap is not good.
According to the Toms Hardware review the controller varies. I think that Kingston must just change the controller from batch to batch. But they said that their test sample came with the SMI SM2267XT controller. But one thing is for sure there's no DRAM cache and the performance is poor.
"The 2TB model we sampled is using the SMI SM2267XT controller. This is one of those entry-level PCIe 4.0 SSD controllers that barely qualifies for the 4.0 moniker."
SMI SM2267XT is inferior, but honestly, Kingston crippled NV2 so that even if you get the E21T version, it behaves more like E19. Unless you really want PCIe gen 4 (i.e. you want it for PS5 and you don't care if the SSD is below recommended specs), NV2 really has to be dirt cheap to be worthwhile. Its performance is inferior to SN570 (even if you get the TLC version of NV2). 2TB has a much higher chance to get the QLC version. The QLC version is worse.
For PC, it doesn't feel right putting this in a PCIe gen 4 slot since you get PCIe gen 3 performance from NV2 (even when placed in a PCIe gen 4 slot).
Would you get this as a non boot drive, even if it has the worst controllers and whatever else you're talking about (over my head). Would it still make a good data/storage/game drive or not even goood for that?
@bobvegas: The best way to think about it is that this is at best slightly worse than SN570 (if you get the TLC version). The QLC version suffers additional sustained write drop but at least it doesn't use junk class QLC NAND.
So, basically, you just consider this as a PCIe gen 3 SSD and if the price is good enough for you, then you could consider. The TLC version, even with the inferior controller, does get a performance somewhat close to SN570, which means it is still above average PCIe gen 3 like performance. Even with the crippled controller, the ARM (cpu) core inside the controller is still decent enough. Factor in the SSD only has 3 year warranty.
Would it still make a good data/storage/game drive or not even goood for that?
Yep, it's absolutely fine for that use case - you won't notice any difference between the basic and the fastest SSDs. This drive is a fine choice.
Yes, personally i wouldn't buy this SSD especially for sustained writes. It will just be crippling. As i said there's no DRAM cache on the NV2 model.
@hollykryten: Writes - it is not just must get DRAM because majority of DRAM SSDs play the same trick with SLC cache. One example, SN570 2TB (NOTE: only the 2TB version, not the 1TB version) has a 900GB SLC dynamic cache when the SSD is empty. With that, who cares about sustained write if you are not going to write over 1TB? SN570 2TB blows away my 1TB SN750 in writes thanks to the large dynamic SLC cache so it is not as clear cut as you think. SN570 2TB writes 900GB worth of data (large files) at 3000+MB/s, you go find a DRAM PCIe gen 3 SSD that beats that. That said, I don't understand why SN570 1TB doesn't have a big dynamic SLC cache.
If you love writing small files to SSDs, then the DRAM could make a noticeable difference, but honestly even SSDs with DRAM don't write small files that fast. NV2's SLC cache is reasonable (for the TLC version). The TLC version does late SLC cache recovery (at around 80% full mark) so until the SSD is filled up, people won't noticed the sharp drop yet, but the drop to 600MB/s write when dynamic SLC cache first runs out is still noticeable. QLC version, however, has to do aggressive recovery so it is more noticeable.
Note for other people: Just an FYI, NV2 2TB (TLC) version's sustained write performance is inferior to NV2 1TB (TLC version). Not by a lot, but still inferior. It does have a larger dynamic SLC cache, but 2TB has to spend more time writing in native TLC mode overall.
'd rather get the $149 dollar intel gen 3 drive with dram cache over this
You really don't want to / cannot be bothered getting the heatsink separately, AND you must buy an SSD for PS5 now, then maybe.
Otherwise, the price isn't that great (with SSD prices keep dropping). Furthermore, 1TB for PS5 isn't ideal. You probably should go for at least 2TB.
Just note that if you're thinking of the Kingston NV2 for the PS5. Forget about it as there's no DRAM cache and the performance would be crippling with large game maps.
For best performance you will want to go with a good gen 4 NVMe SSD with a DRAM cache. Such as the Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD for example. So the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB would have great performance with the PS5. Only problem is its only 1TB in size.
I don't think DRAM cache matters that much for reads. One thing to bear in mind is that game developers prefer not to bank on SSD performance and prefer RAM. Furthermore, hardware compression / decompression on GPU is preferred over loading uncompressed data from SSD. That's why those below spec SSDs are usable for PS5.
Bear in mind that PS5's internal SSD is DRAMless as well. It does have the ability to use system RAM. The internal SSD is SN530 class in terms of NAND chips, but obviously with a PCIe gen 4 like controller (it is actually a custom controller with more priority levels than a NVMe SSD).
This is going to be awesome in 6 weeks' time
Gen 3 drive not a gen 4
The controller on the SSD is gen 4 so the interface to the system is gen 4. It's just that the SSD NAND chips are too slow to saturate the interface speed. But it will still detect to the computer system as a gen 4 SSD. Just like how a portable hard drive can have a USB 3 interface but the drive is too slow to saturate any where near the full bus speed. So basically you are getting gen 3 like performance due to slow NAND chips (or maybe even worse due to there being no DRAM cache) but the controller is gen 4.
Yeah true those USB 3.2 drives don't need to be higher than usb 2.0 in the real world.
Same as my router's USB 3.0 drive which I use to connect a HDD as a NAS - the router itself can't handle more than 60-70 megabytes per second transfer speeds.
No, that's your router's CPU issue. USB 3.2 is needed and even that is slow for NVMe SSDs.
@netsurfer: Hmmm - it's an asus 56U running merlin (SMB2) … I think it can go UP TO 120-130 via a Ethernet port….
How fast would a synology NAS be in terms of transfer rates for SMB2/3?
@BargainHunterJohnnyB: With that router, the CPU isn't fast enough and it is limited to 1Gbps (so theoretical at best around 120MB/s).
However, I was more referring to: don't need to be higher than usb 2.0 in the real world part. If you use a USB 2.0 enclosure, you won't even get 40MB/s. It's all relative, Thunderbolt 3 could get to ~3000MB/s, obviously, not through the router due to gigabit ethernet limitation.
@netsurfer: Yeah that's about it actually 100mb/s.
Do you know if a NAS like synology would be a wise investment for somebody like me or is the router-NAS sufficient enough?
@BargainHunterJohnnyB: Depends on whether you want the added features provided by Synology or you are willing to go custom router firmware and don't care about video transcoding features. Also, it depends on how you feel about RAID setup (i.e. whether you trust that and/or opt for manual backups).
You know the answer to the question best, other people cannot really answer that for you.
@netsurfer: Hmm yeah, the other day I bought that 119 dollar NY 2 tb drive… should I have waited and purchased the $149 intel 2tb gen 3 drive instead? It has much bettter read and write speeds AND a cache, etc.
@BargainHunterJohnnyB: I see, you meant the PNY 2TB SSD. You already bought it, I wouldn't worry about it. I reckon it is fine to go for the cheapest SSD. Slightly better cheap SSD isn't that good I reckon. Intel already sold their SSD business.
@netsurfer: I already have a gen 4 p5 plus from crucial for the Intel Nuc x15 laptop i purchased… the 'cheap' one is going in the 'other' slot for gen 3 and will hold games and movies…
That's why i bought the cheapest one… my desktop has a WD black HDD with 150 mb/s transfer speeds and it runs games and movies fine…
Even the WD elements 10tb external HDD that i bought the other day is more than sufficient with its 160-170 megabytes/sec transfer speeds
It's technically gen 4 (can trick PS5 to accept it), but performance wise, yeah, it is PCIe gen 3 level performance (cannot beat SN570 for example, even in PCIe gen 4 mode).
great budget/cheap option for ps5, reddit users have confirmed it works fine for current games. if future game requires higher performing SSD, can always install those said future games on internal.
That's pretty low SR & SW for a PCIe 4.0 SSD. But considering the price just can't ask for more.
good price - great for storage use.
Come here for the bargains on HD's, get the usual shit fight
it's a gen3 2tb ssd with the gen4 naming. still a good price regardless.
Is showing as $155 so i guess this deal is over.
Looks like the price has been bumped to $155
Wow this is cheaper than a crucial MX500 or Samsung 870 EVO.
Anyone one the difference between the above drives and this Kingston's NV2.
I was able to get the 870 EVO for $100/TB but this price beats that by 30% so I'm thinking of selling my EVO's for NV2's I will just need to find a way to add more m.2 storage.
Edit: I think I found my own answer.. So the 870 EVO has double the TBW but like 1/5 the speed so those are the trade off's as well as being different form factors which might mean you will need an adapter or something for extra m.2 slots
This is what I'm talking about. Specs listed like this should be default for all SSD listings.