Kingston NV1 1TB Performance Testing
We test using both the default smaller test size as well as larger test sets on our benchmarks. This allows us to see the difference between lighter and heavier workloads.
CrystalDiskMark x64
CrystalDiskMark is used as a basic starting point for benchmarks as it is something commonly run by end-users as a sanity check.
The Kingston NV1 gets close enough to its rated 2100 MB/s read and 1700 MB/s write speeds that I say it passes this test. Obviously it is near the bottom of our performance chart, but that was always going to be the case given the rated specs.
Performance holds steady on the larger CrystalDiskMark test, and the NV1 manages to avoid the write performance problems encountered by the Crucial P2 which is very good news.
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.
The anomalously high ATTO test results achieved by the Kingston NV1 are the results of a specific interaction between the Phison PS5013-E13 controller and the compressible nature of the ATTO test data. As a consequence, these results should be discarded as they are not representative of any real world performance achievable by the NV1. They are presented here only to allow me a space to inform users of this faulty interaction.
The anomalously high ATTO test results achieved by the Kingston NV1 are the results of a specific interaction between the Phison PS5013-E13 controller and the compressible nature of the ATTO test data. As a consequence, these results should be discarded as they are not representative of any real world performance achievable by the NV1. They are presented here only to allow me a space to inform users of this faulty interaction.
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.
The Kingston NV1 1TB performance in Anvil is not great, but is not far from the rated specs either. The NV1 read speed brings up the rear, but as a Phison drive write speed is still good compared to the lower-end Silicon Motion drives like the Inland Professional 1TB.
The best thing that can be said about the NV1 for the larger Anvil test is that it holds fairly steady compared to the smaller test. Unlike the Crucial P2, the Kingston NV1’s write score remains solid and the read speed barely budges at all.
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.
AS SSD is particularly kind to the Kingston NV1 1TB, landing solidly in the middle of the pack for its best result yet. Both read and write numbers are decent, especially given the context of a DRAM-less QLC drive.
The larger AS SSD test drops the NV1’s performance by quite a bit, but it still maintains better results than the Crucial P2 and even manages to outperform its big brother the Kingston A2000.
SPECworkstation, thermals, and our conclusion are up next.
It feels like kingston intentionally set the bar as low as possible so that even if they do component swaps down the road, they can still hit their spec’d performance and endurance figures.
And they seem to have set the low bar splendidly.
For reviews of low end products like this, could you put a 2.5″ HDD’s numbers out for comparison. For sustained write some of the traditional hard drives might be faster. They shouldn’t compete on access time or drop resistance, but with more modern hybrid HDD the access time may be comparable on more real world tests. I can see a number of workloads that might be faster on HDD.
Excellent work on this post about Kingston M.2 SSD