PC World - USA 2020-07)

JULY 2020 PCWorld 63

drives, and they are rated for 150TBW

(TeraBytes Written) for every 250GB of

capacity. That’s rather low compared to some

pricier drives, but these ratings are more

about $75 at Newegg.com [go.pcworld.
com/kc25]), 500GB (currently about $123 at
Newegg.com [go.pcworld.com/kc50]), and
1TB (our tested capacity, currently about $222
on Amazon [go.pcworld.com/kc1t]). To
sweeten the deal, Kingston includes a license
for Acronis True Image HD backup software.
The NAND on the 2280 (22mm wide,
80mm long) KC2500 is 96-layer TLC (Triple-
Level cell/3-bit), and the controller is a Silicon
Motion SMI 2262EN. There’s also primary
DRAM cache to the tune of 1MB for every 1TB
of NAND. TLC is treated as SLC to provide
secondary cache.
Kingston offers a five-year warranty on the

Though it lagged a bit behind the Adata and

Samsung drives in total transfer time, the Kingston

KC2500 still turned in an impressive performance.

Tot al t ime

48GB copies

(Seconds)

355

342

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

312

307

48GB folder

write 147

146

128

123

48GB folder

read 152

14 0

133

132

48GB folder

48GB read

28

24

25

28

27

27

29

27

The Kingston KC2500’s CrystalDiskMark numbers
were impressive, especially the read number,
which was nearly equal to that of Samsung’s
mighty 970 Pro.

Sequential Write

(Q=32, T=1) 2,9783,479

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

2,717

3,063

Sequential Read

(Q=32, T=1) 3,4743,507

3,525

3,221

Kingston KC2500 Seagate FireCuda 520

Adata SX8200 Samsugn 970 Pro

CrystalDiskMark 6

MBps

Kingston KC2500 Seagate FireCuda 520

Adata SX8200 Samsugn 970 Pro

Kingston KC2500 Seagate FireCuda 520

Adata SX8200 Samsugn 970 Pro