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Only a few hours before we hit the hustle and bustle of the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show and our friends at KingSpec threw in a loop with the ok to go ahead and post our review on their newest M.2 ultrabook SSD. Add to that the fact that I am writing this at 6:30 am and a Northern Canadian snow storm is blowing outside my window and you just have to know that, even after reporting on SSDs for some five years now, it is still one of my favorite pastimes and a passion that still drives me. Here is a holiday picture I bet you might never expect to see!
Kingspec is a ‘SSD only’ company based in China and has a staff complement of 1200 employees capable of producing up to 3 million SSDs per month. KingSpec has been around since 1995 and, although their name is not as popular as many others in North America, they are a global company with products that can be found in popular e-tailer channels
. Most recently, we posted a report on their Multi-Core 1TB PCIe SSD, capable of 2.5GB/s lightning speeds which was a pleasure to review. As for the availability of the KingSpec M.2 SSD we are reviewing today, we might guess that it may be a more client-directed product and only available at retail level, should demand exist.
SPECIFICATIONS
The KingSpec CHA-M2B7 M.2 NGFF ultrabook SSD is available in capacities of 32, 64 an 128GB and is a 42mm(L) X 22mm(W)X3.2mm(H) SATA M.2 SSD. To say it is small is an understatement as we can fit four of these on a typical business card with plenty of room to spare.
Performance of the 128GB capacity is listed at 520MB/s read and 300MB/s write with up to 65K IOPS which is actually pretty respectable. Power specs are listed at 0.3W idle and 1.6W active and the only real negative we hit was that it only has a 2 year warranty; we would like to see 3 minimum.
COMPONENTS
The KingSpec M2B7 M.2 SSD is based on a JMicron JMF 667H SATA controller that, not only did we test first hand in our KingSpec MultiCore Review, but also, we looked at it in the WD Black2 Dual Drive Review just a few days ago.
Unfortunately, branding removal seemed to be accompanied by the print paint so let’s try and get this at a different angle:
Just below the controller is a Nanya DRAM cache numbered NT5CB128M16HP and two modules of NAND flash memory, one on either side of the PCB.
Each memory module is 19nm MLC and 64GB in capacity for the overall specified size of 128GB. After formatting, 119GB of disk space is available to the user which is typical for this size of SSD.
Also found on the underside of the SSD is a validation sticker that also acts as a security sticker as it cannot be replaced once removed.
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.