The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
TEST PROTOCOL
SSD Testing at TSSDR differs slightly depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise SSDs. For consumer SSDs, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, although CPU C States have not been changed at all. Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with a fresh drive so, not only can we verify that manufacturer specifications are in line but also, so the consumer can replicate our tests to confirm that they have an SSD that is top-notch. We even provide links to most of the benchmarks used in the report.
Enterprise testing is significantly different as we explore performance in steady state, explore drive latency, and do our best to follow SNIA test protocol. As the KingSpec M2B7 M.2 NGFF SSD family of SSDs are as consumer retail products, we are going to be following our regular consumer review tests and, if need be, we can later return for additional testing. For our testing today, the KingSpec M.2 SSD will be connected to our systems Intel SATA port by way of a M-Factors M.2 to SATA 3 Adapter as shown here:
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
This new PCIe Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to be quiet, Corsair, Crucial, Intel, EVGA and InWin for their support in our project. Our choice of components is very narrow, in that, we choose only what we believe to be among the best available and links are provided to each that will assist in hardware pricing and availability, should the reader be interested in purchase.
| PC CHASSIS: | InWin D-Frame Open Air Chassis |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASUS Maximus VI Z87 MotherBoard |
| CPU: |
Intel Core i7-4770K CPU |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair H100i CPU Cooler |
| POWER SUPPLY: | be quiet Dark Power Pro 10 1000W PSU |
| SYSTEM COOLING: | be quiet Silent Wings 2 PC Fans |
| GRAPHICS CARD: |
EVGA GTX 770 Superclocked with ACX Cooler |
| MEMORY: | Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1600Mhz Memory |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair Vengeance K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard |
| MOUSE: | Corsair Vengeance M95 MMO/RTS Laser Mouse |
| ROUTER: | NetGear R6300 AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router |
| HBA | HighPoint RocketU 1144C 4 x USB 3.0 20Gb/s HBA |
.
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities and PCMark Vantage. In consumer reports, we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and, also, to provide validation to results already obtained.
Crystal Disk Info provides some excellent information about the SSD itself to include its health, product information, ‘power on’ information as well as the characteristics of the SSD. We can see that the SSD is capable of TRIM as it is not grayed out as with AAM.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.
Considering that the JMicron controller is really a mid-level product, the performance we are seeing in this test is pretty decent. Not only did both the read and write speeds exceed listed specifications, but also, the graduation of speeds is consistent and SATA 3 performance is evident right from the 8K file size.
Bring us more good news from CES.
We got an almost Canadian snow storm here on Cape Cod today. Greta photo! I am still waiting for the Samsung 840 pro m.2 form factor 🙂 Have fun at CES. You are going, yes? Dave
Yup…on our way this morning and out of a snow storm. Seems every year we bring more and still don’t have enough bodies to spread out to all evets and appointments.
I am really happy for your success! What a fun time that show must be! I will be awaiting the secrets when they can be released 🙂 Dave
Any idea where in Canada (if that is where you were) that this particular make/model SSD is available? I am having a difficult time sourcing M.2 2242-form-factor SSD cards that can be purchased here.
What size and form factor are you looking for? SATA 3 M.2?
Well, this is the best page I have found describing the various physical parameters of M.2 SSD drives:
https://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/m.2-ngff-ssd-compatibility-list/53
On all the various Chromebooks I am aware of — including the new Asus Chromebox I just purchased, only the ‘MyDigitalSSD SuperCache 2 M.2 (SATA)’ is currently mentioned as a (larger) replacement drive, and it is of the ‘2242’ (meaning 22mm wide, 42mm long)’ form factor, with ‘M’ & ‘B’ key SSD edge connectors. To my eyes, that looks like a match to the KingSpec you reviewed in your article above. I can find no online stores selling *any* SSDs with those parameters in Canada, and then saw your article — for a brand that I had never heard mentioned before in this context i.e. KingSpec.
Are you looking for a chrome book SSD? If so, we are just about to review a chrome book with the SSD you just mentioned from MyDigitalSSD. We will be replacing the stock SSD with a MyDigitalSSD 128 GB version in a Acer Chromebook.
You can buy from MyDigitalSSD directly. I am not aware of another option right now. Also, products not available in Canada are normally purchasable on Amazon.com…at least some.
Well, thanks in any case. I had hopes for KingSpec as another choice 🙂
Do Not ever buy any SSD for Kingspec! I bought one from them and after a year it is dead. I have been contacting them for more than 3 months now by email them and trying to call them yet no response from their side! Never ever I will buy a product with shit service again!
Did you ever tried this ssd in Lenovo Y510p ? It works on AHCI as a boot drive?
Don’t repeat my mistake, don’t buy anything from Kingspec, especially from aliexpress or ebay. I bought 512GB Kingspec F9 SSD from aliexpress, and it worked just fine, but only for a month. Then it failed completely without any reason, just disappeared in the middle of operation. Never had another SSD fail for me in the first 2 years.
Of course, since it was bought from China (and confirmed as delivered) – no way to return or replace it
my Kingfast F8 now works 2 year, and all is good. I buy it from aliexpress.
I wish i read the comments before. My Kingspec SSD is also dead in just 4 months and they donot reply at all.
You can read a lot of bad feedback about them on https://kingspecssdreview.blogspot.com/
Suggest me a ssd m2 42 mm
I think the removal of the branding on the flash chips is a red flag. Why would they do this? Probably in order to remove marks that indicate that these are rejected parts or seconds. Since the flash parts are rejects or seconds, the overprovisioning or performance is not as high as on other drives, therefore, the drive will fail sooner or be slower. I would recommend drives from mydigitalssd, they are extremely affordable use either toshiba or micron flash, and they DON’T remove the branding on their chips.
I had one of these for around 4 months (the 1TB model) and it started to go slow. Another month and a half later it became painful to write to it (KB/s transfer speed) and the device started to create NTFS errors during writing mainly but errors were also occurring during reads. I have two laptops with 3 SSD devices in each one and this has stood out as being by far the worst performer. I also note that the 1TB M.2 SSD appears to have been removed from the produce offerings. It was painful getting a replacement but it is on its way now as I understand it. Overall have not been impressed with this outcome and fortunately backup everything using Acronis so a disaster was averted.
Geoffrey, NZ.