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PCIE AND SATA M .2 SSD PERFORMANCE
The following charts lay out our M.2 SSD testing to date and encompasses both PCIe and SATA M.2 SSDs. The KingSpec M2B7 is the only using the JMicron controller and provided fairly respectable performance.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
The sole advantage that the SATA 3 M.2 SSD has over the mSATA or any notebook SSD is size and nothing more. It is still SATA based and hits the same bottleneck as all other SATA 3 SSDs; performance is limited to the mid-500MB/s level. By numbers alone many believe that having a system with 1GB/s transfer speeds must be much faster and is of huge benefit. The truth is that this is not the case and, unless you have specific intent for that added performance, SATA 3 will suffice. The common user will never see any difference between PCIe and SATA 3 speeds. In fact, if I set up two systems side by side right now, one with a SATA 2 SSD and one with SATA 3, typical performance would not differ whatsoever. I could ay the same in comparing a PCIe and SATA 2 SSD.
What the M.2 SATA SSD does do however, and more specifically the KingSpec M2B7 128GB M.2 SSD we see here, is gives you that same performance in a considerably smaller footprint. Remember what we said about being able to get 4 of these SSDs on a single business card. That is where we are going with SATA 3 M.2 SSDs, the world of ultras and non-consumer things such as surveillance systems, drone planes and so on. To push 500MB/s out of a storage device this size wasn’t even conceived of not so long ago. Remember full size 3.5″ HDDs?
There is no doubt in anyones mind that 2014 will be the year of M.2 SSDs and it is great to see KingSpec jump aboard right off. Their M2B7 M.2 SSD is high performing, has decent performance and their selection of the JMicron controller will keep it at a very affordable price point when purchased in bulk. Will it hit retail shelves? Looking at other KingSpec products on Amazon, we are sure that it will eventually but, when and at what price, we are not sure. Off to CES!
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.