Kingspec NE-256 Performance Testing
We are moving towards using larger test sizes on our benchmarks, but on several tests, we also used the smaller default test sizes. This allows us to see the difference between lighter and heavier workloads.
BlackMagic Disk Speed Test
This is a popular speed test in the video community. It shows whether a storage device is suitable for throughput required at a given video format.
Given the lower-rated speeds of the Kingspec NE-256, we brought this test back out of retirement just to see how it fares. As you can see, this drive cannot satisfy all of the tested formats.
CrystalDiskMark 7.0.0 x64
CrystalDiskMark is used as a basic starting point for benchmarks as it is something commonly run by end-users as a sanity check.
Right out of the gate, you can get an idea for where this drive will land in all of our testing. The WD Red SA550 1TB drive is SATA based and has been added into the result matrix to represent SATA drives. The KingSpec NE-256 manages to outpace that SATA drive, but nothing else. More importantly, it falls well short of its own rated specifications for sequential transfer speeds.
At least the larger larger 8GB benchmark does not harm the KingSpec, which holds its ground.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
The ATTO Disk Benchmark has been a staple of drive sequential performance testing for years. ATTO was tested at both 256MB and 8GB file sizes.
On the other hand, ATTO is not kind to the KingSpec NE-256. Read performance is still comfortably ahead of SATA, but write performance comes in below the WD Red drive. And, of course, neither metric is anywhere near the rated speed.
The larger ATTO is, frankly, a challenge. In addition to losing significant ground, especially for the write speeds, the KingSpec NE-256 performance varies wildly over the course of the benchmark. This is interesting simply because the lack of consistency here is something we are not accustomed to seeing with modern SSDs.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities
Anvil’s Storage Utilities is a comprehensive benchmark that gives us a very in-depth look at the performance of drives tested. This benchmark was run with both a 1GB and 8GB test size.
In contrast to ATTO, Anvil is relatively kind to the KingSpec NE-256. The drive has managed to take its first victory over a NVMe drive in the QLC-based Sabrent Rocket Q 500GB. Sequential speeds are still nowhere near rated, but random speeds are at least in the neighborhood of respectable, especially for writes.
The KingSpec NE-256 manages to hold strong in the larger Anvil 8GB test. In addition to soundly beating the Sabrent Rocket Q 500GB, it has now notched a victory against the Crucial P2 1TB as far as write performance is concerned.
AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD Benchmark is another good benchmark for testing SSDs. We run all three tests for our series. Like other utilities, it was run with both the default 1GB as well as a larger 10GB test set.
The good fortunes were not fated to last, as now that we are looking at the 1GB ASSSD test, the Kingspec NE-256 returns to the bottom of the NVMe charts. It narrowly edges out the SATA drive, but is nowhere near approaching our lowest-performing NVMe drives.
Unfortunately, as has happened in a couple other tests at this point, the larger test set has dropped the write performance of the Kingspec NE-256 to below SATA levels. On the other hand, in relative terms the drive is now in a dead heat with the Sabrent Rocket Q 500GB thanks to that drive also suffering a huge performance hit.
SPECworkstation, thermals, and our conclusion are up next.
It will still make a decent boot drive for a TrueNAS, ESXi, or PF-Sense rig…
“Decent” compared to a floppy disk. Maybe.
All that, missed even its own low specs, and still gets a 5/10 for performance? I kind of wonder what a drive needs to do to get, say, a 2/10.
At roughly +10$ to the $50-60 this Kingspec retails at, you could have a (2280) Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250GB. In terms of performance and likely reliability it seems hard to argue for the Kingspec.
I have the 512GB version installed in a Lenovo Thinkpad T480, specifically because it was the only NVMe SSD that fit in the open M.2 E-keyed 2242 slot. The slot is incompatible with E-keyed SATA SSDs, so there’s not many options.
Neither Patrick nor I remember exactly what he paid for this drive, but I want to say at the time it was much closer to $30 than $60.
Unless you absolutely have to have a 2242 with this specific keying it seems like an extremely niche use. Maybe an oem will buy a large volume for ridiculously cheap laptops.
have new driver? bad boot win 10 Pro.