No flaws: testing the most productive Kingston KC2500 SSD

The rapid development of SSD and NAND memory controller technologies obliges manufacturers to keep pace with progress. Therefore, Kingston announced the release of a new KC2500 SSD with read speeds up to 3,5 GB / s, and write speeds up to 2,9 GB / s.

New items are presented in four sizes from 250 GB to 2 TB and all of them are made in the M.2 2280 form factor, equipped with a PCI Express 3.0 x4 connection interface with the NVMe 1.3 protocol and support end-to-end data protection using 256-bit AES hardware encryption. Encryption is applicable in a corporate environment, given the support for TCG Opal 2.0 and Microsoft eDrive. Speed ​​​​characteristics depend on the size of the SSD:

• 250 GB - read up to 3500 MB / s, write up to 1200 MB / s;
• 500 GB - read up to 3500 MB / s, write up to 2900 MB / s;
• 1 TB - read up to 3500 MB / s, write up to 2900 MB / s;
• 2 TB - read up to 3500 MB / s, write up to 2900 MB / s.

The stated warranty period is 5 years.



The core of any NVMe drive is the controller, and Kingston continues to use the well-known Silicon Motion SM2262ENG processor. Naturally, all 8 channels available to the controller are involved. And the main difference from the KC2000 is the improved firmware, which allows you to use all the reserves of NAND memory. And, in my own words, overclocked NAND memory chips.

В комплект поставки входит сам SSD KC 2500 и ключ для активации утилиты Acronis True Image HD. С его помощью будет проще мигрировать на новый накопитель, сделав образ своего старого диска. Накопитель сконструирован в распространенном форм-факторе M.2 2280 и подойдет для установки в ПК и ноутбуки. Стандартное форматирование в среде Windows оставляет для пользователя 931 гигабайт свободного пространства. Схема расположение NAND памяти – двухстороннее, а сам SSD позволяет на него установить дополнительное охлаждение, но как выяснится дальше, оно не является обязательным условием.

Testing technique

The topology of the structure of SSD drives provides for the use of a write and read buffer, as well as multithreading. The DRAM cache size is usually either static or dynamic. In today's typical SSDs on Silicon Motion controllers, a "cunning" dynamic DRAM cache is often installed, and the firmware controls it. The main trick lies in the controller and firmware. The better and more progressive the controller is used and the more adaptive the firmware is for different usage scenarios, the faster the SSD works, provided that high-speed NAND memory is available.

Тестовый стенд включал в себя платформу Intel с материнской платой ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero (Wi-Fi), процессором Intel Core i7 9900K, видеокартой ASUS Radeon RX 5700, 16 Гб памяти DDR4-4000 и операционной системой Windows 10 X64 (сборка 19041).

Test results

AS SSD benchmark

• Testing was done with 10 GB data;
• Sequential read/write test;
• Random read / write test to 4 KB blocks;
• Random read / write test 4 KB blocks (queue depth 64);
• Read/write access time measurement test;
• The final result in arbitrary units;
• Copy Benchmark evaluates the speed of work and the time spent on it when copying different groups of files (ISO image, folder with programs, folder with games).

CrystalDiskMark

• Testing was carried out with 5 repetitions, each with a capacity of 16 GB and 1 GB.
• Sequential read/write with a depth of 8.
• Sequential read/write with a depth of 1.
• Random read/write in blocks of 4 kb with a depth of 32 and 16 threads.
• Random read/write in blocks of 4 kb with a depth of 1.

HD Tune Pro 5.75

• Linear read and write speed in blocks of 64 KB.
• Access time.
• Extended read and write tests
• Tests of work with various block sizes, as well as real speed on a 16 GB file.

PCMark 10 Storage

• Quick System Drive Benchmark: A short benchmark that emulates a light load on a storage system. Test sets are used that repeat the real actions of the system and programs with the drive;
• Data Drive Benchmark: Replicates the load on the storage system in the form of test sets for NAS, (storage and use of various types of files).

Heating during sequential recording

The standard procedure for writing to the KC2500 SSD allows you to evaluate the degree of heating of the device without active cooling. You won't be surprised if we tell you that high-performance SSD heat is the cornerstone. Regarding this problem, engineers are fighting and trying not to start the SSD in critical modes. The simplest approach involves installing a heatsink (purchased separately, or the motherboard cooling system is used), or a mode for skipping write queues is introduced to unload the controller. This reduces performance, but the SSD does not overheat. The same scheme works on processors when it skips cycles when it gets too hot. But in the case of a processor, gaps will not be as noticeable to the user as with an SSD. After all, having warmed up above the temperature set by the designers, the SSD will skip too many cycles. And this, in turn, will cause "friezes" in the operating system. Fortunately, in Kingston KC2500, the firmware is adapted in such a way that during recording, the controller rests when the DRAM cache is depleted. For any recording task, the buffer first ends, the controller is unloaded, then the data again enters the buffer and the recording continues at the same speed without a long stop. The temperature of 72C is close to critical, but the test itself took place in unfavorable conditions: the SSD was located close to the video card and lacked a motherboard heatsink. The installation of a heatsink that comes with the motherboard made it possible to reduce the temperature to 53-55C. The SSD sticker was not removed, and the motherboard thermal pad was used as a thermal interface material. In addition, the size of the ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero heatsink is not so large, and, accordingly, it has only an average heat dissipation efficiency. It is worth considering that, by taking the Kingston KC2500 to a separate PCIe adapter card and equipping it with a heatsink, you can completely forget about temperature conditions.

Dynamic cache

Traditionally, any review of a drive includes a test for filling the DRAM cache, followed by an announcement of its size, but this is a fundamentally wrong statement. Model Kingston KC2500 The fast buffer is allocated dynamically not only as a percentage of free space, but also based on the type of data being written.

For example, let's try to fill the entire disk with a file with random data. This file contains compressible and non-compressible data in various blocks. Theoretically, a fast buffer should be enough for 100-200 GB, but as you can see, the result is different. A significant drop in linear recording was drawn only at the 400+ GB mark, which tells us about the complex firmware recording control algorithm. At this stage, it becomes clear where the man-hours were spent when creating the KC2500. Thus, the SLC cache on the KC2500 drive is indeed dynamically allocated and depends on many factors, but is definitely not limited to 150-160 GB.

Типы обращений к SSD ОС Windows 10

The second common mistake is not to let the reader understand what accesses go to the disk if you use it as a system disk. And here again, the right approach to evaluation is important. I will try to repeat the usual work in the operating system by the user. To do this, let's delete something to the trash, open a dozen files in Photoshop, run disk cleanup in parallel, export from Excel, having previously opened several tables and continue writing this text. There is not enough parallel installation of updates, well, nothing, let's launch the updates from Steam.

За почти 10 минут работы более 90% обращений были связаны с чтением файлов блоками 4К, и почти половина записей такими же блоками. Замечу, что файл подкачки в среде Windows был на усмотрение системы. В целом картина показывает, что важны для работы не столько скорость, сколько время отклика на мелкоблочных операциях. Причем объем этих операций не столь велик. Естественно, стоит задуматься о приобретении быстрого SSD под игры (загрузка самих игр и скорость записи обновлений также важны). А в качестве еще одной ремарки, приятно получать и высокую скорость линейного чтения/записи, когда речь идет о частом копировании или записи данных.

Conclusions

Kingston KC2500 is a continuation of the popular KC2000 series, based on accelerated memory with firmware adapted for desktop computers. Improvements have affected both linear read and write speeds. The approach to the SLC cache has been revised, it has more degrees of freedom and adjustment to various scenarios. As a bonus, Kingston continues to give buyers a 5-year warranty, as well as support for 256-bit XTS-AES encryption.

For more information about Kingston Technology products, please visit official site company.

Source: habr.com