Kingston SM2280S3 120GB M.2 SATA SSD Review

The good folks over at Kingston were kind enough to send over a Kingston M.2. SM2280S3 120GB M.2. Solid State Drive, whats the noise about you might ask. The noise is about the blazing speed one of these innocuous little drives can produce. As a little spoiler, to grab your attention, I tossed this little jewel on Hexzilla and ran a Quick AS SSD test on it and the read speed hit 499MB/s, Write hit 240MB/s. If that doesn’t make you want to jump up and scream “I want one” you may want to check your Pulse.

Kingston 120GB M.2. Sata SSD Bring The Noise

Packed in a small clam shell about the same size as a normal stick of RAM the Kingston M.2. SM2280S3 120GB M.2. Solid State Drive can transform a sluggish system into a rip roaring fast machine.  With speeds rated to run upwards of 500MB/s Read and 330MB/s Write the Kingston M.2. 120GB SSD packs a mean whollup for a puny price.  Seen on shelves for a mere $86.99 USD the Kingston M.2. 120 GB SSD is probably the best investment, bang for buck, that you can get to bolster a M.2. capable machine.

Opting to spend their money on blazing speed and R&D Kingston packs their M.2. SM2280S3 120GB M.2. Solid State Drive in a simple clam shell package.  Looking at it you’d almost think it was a Ram stick but looks are deceiving.  What lies behind that simple clam shell is 500MB/s Read and 330MB/s Write simple blazing speed.  While 120GB isn’t a whole lot of capacity it is enough capacity for a Boot drive with several games or critical programs. Just that small change to a systems configuration going from a standard platter drive to a Kingston M.2. 120GB SSD can make all the difference in the world to how a system responds.

Specifications

Kingston SM2280S3/120GB M.2 Features and Specifications:

• Popular M.2 Size — 22mm width, 80mm length
• NAND Flash memory based — shock resistant with lower power consumption
• Supports Intel’s SRT — combines capacity advantage of HDD with performance improvements of SSD in dual-storage configuration
• Supports S.M.A.R.T. — monitors the status of your drive
• Supports TRIM — maintains maximum performance of compatible operating systems
• Guaranteed — 3-year warranty and free technical support

• Form factor: M.2 2280
• Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s)
• Capacities: 120GB
• Baseline Performance:
  • Compressible Data Transfer (ATTO): 550MB/s Read and 520MB/s Write
  • Incompressible Data Transfer (AS-SSD and CrystalDiskMark): 500MB/s Read and 330MB/s Write
  • IOMETER Maximum Random 4k Read/Write: up to 66,000/ up to 65,000 IOPS
  • Random 4k Read/Write: up to 46,000/ up to 4,500 IOPS
  • PCMARK Vantage HDD Suite Score: 56,000
  • PCMARK 8 Storage Bandwidth: 215 MB/s
• Power Consumption: 0.09 W Idle / 1.11 W Avg / 1.02W (MAX) Read / 2.86 W (MAX) Write
• Storage temperatures: -40°C ~ 85°C
• Operating temperatures: 0°C ~ 70°C
• Dimensions: 80mm x 22mm x 3.5mm
• Weight: 7.36g
• Vibration operating: 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)
• Vibration non-operating: 20G Peak (10–2000Hz)
• Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF
• Warranty/support: 3-year warranty with free technical support
• Total Bytes Written (TBW): 230TB 1.8 DWPD4