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An NV series drive from Kingston needs no introduction. The company has been a leader in SSD module manufacturing, with a strong focus on delivering affordable drives worldwide. This series is a budget lynchpin, a fan favorite for inexpensive builds and upgrades. The Kingston NV3 2230 follows in these footsteps to help conquer a market that’s seen unprecedented growth since Valve’s Steam Deck launch, a shorter form factor solution that faces extra challenges when the goal is maximum capacity. Kingston meets this head-on with a drive that’s also relatively inexpensive, an important consideration in an increasingly turbulent storage market .
The good and bad news is that this means you know what you’re going to get: an affordable, passable drive with usually wide availability but unknown hardware. The first part is good. As for the controller and flash, well, you know that you can never be sure, as the NV series uses whatever is available. That’s bad. How much does this matter for M.2 2230? Well, given the drive’s specifications, which set the minimum, this drive is plenty fast for any device that can take it. The controllers that pass muster and can fit on M.2 2230 are largely decent and will usually be paired with adequate flash – our sample has good hardware even with its QLC flash. This usually means a power-efficient drive, which is critically important for this form factor. The highest capacities also need newer or future flash to work, although we wouldn’t be surprised if some lingering QLC stock could end up on the drive, and that’s less ideal at the most common capacities.
We offer a hedge by relying on the old adage: you get what you pay for. The Kingston NV 2230 is inexpensive and fundamentally sound, but not high-end. If you’re looking for the fastest or best, this isn’t the drive for you. If you want something that will offer an excellent experience at a lower cost, then it should certainly be on your list. It’s likely equal to or better than many no-name brands, and the wide capacity range on offer lets you dial in exactly what you need. It can always be extended in length to fit M.2 2242 or 2280 slots, too. Our sample has excellent power efficiency, so we see no problem with that from a cooling perspective, keeping in mind that usually M.2 2280 versions of drives have more surface area for heat dissipation. To wrap it up simply: Kingston has once again delivered on a simple budget premise, this time in a smaller form factor.
Kingston NV3 2230 Specifications
Swipe to scroll horizontally Product 500GB 1TB 2TB 4TB Pricing | w/HS $50.23 $79.99 $139.69 N/A Form Factor M.2 2230 (Single-sided) M.2 2230 (Single-sided) M.2 2230 (Single-sided) M.2 2230 Interface / Protocol PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4 PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4 PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4 PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4 Controller SMI SM2268XT2 SMI SM2268XT2 SMI SM2268XT2 SMI SM2268XT2 DRAM N/A (HMB) N/A (HMB) N/A (HMB) N/A (HMB) Flash Memory Kioxia 218-Layer QLC Kioxia 218-Layer QLC Kioxia 218-Layer QLC Kioxia 218-Layer QLC Sequential Read 5,000 MB/s 6,000 MB/s 6,000 MB/s N/A (6,000 MB/s) Sequential Write 3,000 MB/s 4,000 MB/s 5,000 MB/s N/A (5,000 MB/s) Random Read N/A N/A N/A N/A Random Write N/A N/A N/A N/A Security N/A N/A N/A N/A Endurance (TBW) 160TB 320TB 640TB N/A (1,280TB) Part Number SNV3SM3/500G SNV3SM3/1T0 SNV3SM3/2T0 SNV3SM3/4T0 Features N/A N/A N/A N/A Warranty 5-Year 5-Year 5-Year 5-Year
The Kingston NV3 2230, unlike many M.2 2230 SSDs, is available in a wide range of capacities: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and eventually 4TB. Current pricing is at $50.23, $79.99, and $139.69. This pricing is competitive as one would expect from a Kingston NV3 drive. The drive is capable of hitting up to 6,000 / 5,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, with no specifications given for random read and write IOPS. We would expect a ceiling around 1,000K IOPS with this hardware.
These specifications are effectively identical to the full-length NV3, but there are changes worth noting. The first is that while the TBW is the same, the 2230 version of the drive has a five-year rather than a three-year warranty. This means the drive writes per day (DWPD) is actually lower on this drive, although still higher than the Crucial P310 2230 . Write endurance shouldn’t be an issue with a drive of this type, but be aware of this distinction. Another difference is weight, with the 2280 NV3 being much heavier, as one would expect. The final difference is the flash: BiCS6 QLC on the 2280 and BiCS8 QLC on the 2230 NV3, a change we will dig into in more depth later.
Kingston NV3 2230 Software and Accessories
Kingston’s primary software offering is the Kingston SSD Manager, which is your typical SSD toolbox application. It’s designed to help you monitor disk health, verify properties of the drive, and upgrade the drive’s firmware. Kingston also has its own OEM version of Acronis True Image, which is used to back up, clone, and restore data. These two applications cover almost everything you’d need for a drive, although of course they are designed for Windows.
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