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KINGMAX started off back in 1989 and has been committed to becoming a leader in global memory technology since. They manufacture an array of memory products from DRAM to USB drives to SSDs. They have been offering 2.5″ SSDs since 2008 and the release of their M.2 2242 and M.2 2280 SATA SSDs marks their first step into the M.2 world.
As you may have noticed, M.2 drives are starting to become a hot commodity these days with the release of more motherboards with M.2 support. While the interface allows for either PCIe or SATA performance, most manufacturers have been focusing on M.2 2280 form factor SATA 3 implementations for their initial releases. However, there is always demand for smaller and lighter drives, this is where the smaller M.2 2230 and M.2 2242 form factors come into play. These smaller form factors are perfect for implementation in ultra-lightweight mobile devices were space is limited and every gram counts. While the M.2 2280 form factor allows for a ~15% size reduction compared to mSATA, KINGMAX’s M.2 2242 SATA SSD occupies less than half the physical space that a typical mSATA SSD does! Not only that, but it is also about half the weight as well.
So now that you can see how the KINGMAX M.2 2242 SATA SSD’s size compares to other small form factor drives, let’s go over its specs!
SPECIFICATIONS, PRICING, AND AVAILABILITY
The KINGMAX M.2 2242 is offered in three capacities, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. Its M.2 2280 bother is offered in 256GB as well. Its SATA 6Gb/s logical interface allows for read speeds of up to 540MB/s and write speeds of up to 300MB/s. Furthermore, KINGMAX’s M.2 SSDs have BCH and ECC error checking and correcting technologies, S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, are in CE, FCC, BSMI, RoHS compliance. Operating temperature is rated for between 0°C~70°C while storage temperature is rated for between -55°C~95°C. Typical active power consumption is rated at 2.8W while idle is a mere 0.33W. And finally, KINGMAX backs the drives with a 3 year warranty.
As for pricing and availability, while KINGMAX distributes products around the globe, I have yet to see any product listings for the drive in most retail outlets in North America.
PACKAGING AND COMPONENTS
Our review sample didn’t come in any retail packaging, simply an antistatic bag. With a quick look on the front and back we can see that this drive comes with a single Nanya DRAM chip, Silicon Motion SATA controller, and two packages of Micron NAND.
Taking a closer look we can see that the controller is a SM2246EN SATA 6Gb/s SSD controller. To learn more about it, feel free to check out our articles on it here and here.
Looking at the Nanya DRAM module we can see that its part number is NT5CC128M16FP-DI. Thus it is 128MB of DDR3L-1600.
For the NAND packages, they are Micron MLC. By using the Micron FBGA Decoder, we can identify the NAND product number for this drive as being MT29F512G08CMCABH7-6C:A. Each package is 64GB in capacity for a total RAW capacity of 128GB, as there one module on each side of the PCB. When formatted, the total capacity available to the user is reduced to 119GB.