The UV in the Kingston UV series stands for ultra value and they really are. Kingston has designed it to provide high capacity flash-based storage for those on a shoe-string budget. Solid State Drives are gaining in popularity and the prices are coming down too , Kingston has been slowly moving at fast pace in this segment. In fact, according to research firm Forward Insights, Kingston Digital has secured a 16% share of all SSDs shipped in 2016, placing them second only to Samsung who have 21% market share. The UV400 available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB options has reduced the cost versus performance, making it affordable to mainstream computer users to avail SSD to enjoy the benefits of flash. In fact, the UV400 was first made to cater the RIM countries, meaning Russia, India and Mexico, where buyers are extremely value conscious. When Kingston realized the potential of the UV400 series and its popularity in the RIM, they took it global.
Specifications of UV400:
Capacities: 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB Controller: Marvell 88SS1074 NAND: Toshiba 15nm planar TLC Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gbps) Data Transfer (ATTO):
- 120GB — up to 550MB/s Read and 350MB/s Write
- 240GB — up to 550MB/s Read and 490MB/s Write
- 480GB — up to 550MB/s Read and 500MB/s Write
- 960GB — up to 540MB/s Read and 500MB/s Write
Maximum Random 4k Read/Write (IOMETER):
- 120GB — up to 90,000 IOPS and 15,000 IOPS
- 240GB — up to 90,000 IOPS and 25,000 IOPS
- 480GB — up to 90,000 IOPS and 35,000 IOPS
- 960GB — up to 90,000 IOPS and 50,000 IOPS
Power Consumption: 0.672W Idle / 0.693W Avg / 0.59W (MAX) Read / 2.515W (MAX) Write Storage temperature: -40°C~85°C Operating temperature: 0°C~70°C Dimensions: 100.0mm x 69.9mm x 7.0mm Weight: 57g Vibration operating: 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz) Vibration non-operating: 20G Peak (10–2000Hz) Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF Warranty/support: Limited 3-year warranty with free technical support
At the core of the UV400 is the Marvell’s 88SS1074 4-channel flash controller. The UV400 has mated the Marvell 88SS1074 controller with super-low-cost Toshiba 15nm 3-bit planar flash in TSOP packages and an LPDDR3 cache package. By opting with the economical TSOP packaged flash, Kingston has made possible the UV400 SSDs are cheaper comparatively, though there is a slight compromise in the speed when compared to the higher bus speed BGA packaged flash. Still, The UV400 is up to 10X faster than mechanical hard drives, it is silent, and uses far less power than a conventional HDD.
Variants:
There are currently six different UV400 models in three capacities. You can purchase each SSD as a bare drive or with an upgrade bundle, which includes the following items.
This is the bare drive.
And this is the UV400 bundle kit.
The bundle kit includes:
- USB 3.0 Enclosure
- USB 3.0 Cable
- SATA Data Cable
- SATA Power Cable
- Desktop Mounting Bracket
- Mounting Screws
- 7mm to 9mm Z-height Bracket
UV400 – Should you be going for it?
I am not going to bore with the technical aspects of the UV400 with data of the tests thrown in , there are better experts who dig in those info in the internet and if you are sucker for raw data, you can always look into them. For normal buyers who know a bit of what SSD is and contemplating on Kingston UV400 here is my thoughts to make you decide better. Simply put, The UV400 480GB is a good buy, it may not be the best in class SSD but it offers a best in class value for money. And between the 120GB, 240GB and 480GB models, I would suggest you to go with the 480GB since it’s performance is better than the other two and is faster. Also if you have another higher performing SSD in your machine, the UV400 can make for a good supplement as a secondary drive. Ask any hardcore machine builder, he would vouch dividing data between two SSDs to maintain their performance levels of the drives and make them last swifter when you grind it more data. The UV400 is a entry-level SSD that gives you a quantum jump in performance when you move from the hard disk drives. It definitely gives a better user experience compared to the hard disk drives. Of course you cannot compare the UV400 with Samsung 850 EVO 500GB but then UV400 strikes the deal with a better value for performance, if that is a major criteria for you.
