Kingston kc600 review in Spanish (complete analysis)

After analyzing the A400 version that was shaping up to be the cheapest, it is now the turn of the Kingston KC600, the 2.5 ”SSD with the best performance / price ratio that we can find. And it is that the price of these standard size SATA III SSDs is in its sweet moment and without a doubt they are much more affordable and attractive for users with tight budgets, where a 1 TB M.2 such as this unit could not cost about € 80 at least.

What Kingston proposes is an SSD with AES 256 bit hardware encryption, capacity between 256 GB and 2 TB and a Silicon Motion controller that offers us a performance almost to the maximum of the capacity of the interface with 3D TLC memories.

As always, we appreciate Kingston's confidence in the Professional Review by giving us this SSD for analysis.

Kingston KC600 technical features

Unboxing

As usual in this type of products that are considered low cost, the Kingston KC600 comes inside a cardboard blister pack on the back and hard plastic perfectly molded to the size of the SSD. The rest of the versions will come in exactly the same way.

It is a package that takes up little space and is also very manageable, with the main drawback that we must completely break the package to access the product. Inside we have absolutely nothing else, so all the information about the device comes in the cardboard, with its respective speed, capacity and warranty.

Encapsulation design

This Kingston KC600 1TB SSD is presented to us in a standard 2.5-inch package with measurements of 100mm long, 70mm wide and only 7mm thick, making it ideal not only for desktops, but also for laptops that support drives in this format.

A pretty good aspect of Kingston SSDs is that this package is made entirely of very good quality aluminum. In fact, its characteristics tell us that it supports vibrations of up to 2.17G or 800 Hz during operation and up to 2000 Hz or 20G off. In addition to extra protection against falls from considerable heights, although it does not support crushing, although we do not plan to pass a car over it.

We are analyzing the 1 TB (1024 GB) drive, although the manufacturer has versions of 256 GB, 512 GB and up to 2024 GB, so the range is not bad. In this case we do not have a glossy finish as the A400 was, although the manufacturer's own screen printing and logo cannot be missing.

Features and characteristics

To access the interior of the Kingston KC600 we would only have to remove the four torx head screws that we have at the top. In this case it is not an encapsulation that is press-fitted as it happens with ADATA plastic ones, so it is much easier. Of course, consider that if we do this we will lose the guarantee of the product.

Both this and the other storage versions have TLC-type 3D NAND memories that this time will be built by Micron, an important difference compared to cheaper units such as the A400. Each of these 96-layer chips offers a capacity of 256 GB, so in this case we will have a total of 4 of them.

Internal controlling structure

To exercise control of data input and output we have a Silicon Motion SM2259 controller. This version offers compatibility with TLC and SLC memories, giving us a total of 4 channels for NAND memories, which implies that either the next 2 TB SSD has 512 GB memories or uses an 8-channel controller for management. Although the manufacturer specifies this capability in the list, it is not yet marketable. Theoretically, the performance of this controller will be 560 MB / s in sequential reading and 520 MB / s in writing, along with 100K IOPS and 90K IOPS.

Supports XTS-AES 256-bit hardware encryption , TCG Opal and eDrive. Something that does rise considerably compared to the cheaper versions is the number of bytes written in total, doubling for example the A400. Specifically, this 1 TB version supports up to 600 TBW and the average of 1 million hours between failures (MTBF). As a mere curiosity, the consumption at maximum performance will be only 1.3W in reading and 3.2W in writing.

Test equipment and benchmarks

We now turn to the battery of tests corresponding to this Kingston KC600 1 TB. To do this, we have used the following test bench:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel i9-9900K
Base plate:	Asus Maximus Formula XI
Memory:	16GB DDR4 T-Force
Heatsink	Corsair H100i Platinum SE
HDD	Kingston KC600 1TB
Graphic card	Asus GTX 1660 Ti
Power supply	Cooler Master V850 Gold

The tests to which we have submitted this SSD are as follows:

Crystal Disk MarkAS SSD BenchmarkATTO Disk BenchmarkAnvil´s Storage

All these programs are in their latest available version. Remember not to abuse these tests in your units, since the life time is reduced.

In the CristalDisk software we have obtained measurements that are quite adjusted to what the manufacturer specifies, more specifically that of the controller, with those 650 MB / s and very close to 520 MB / s in sequential reading and writing. The rest of the random read and write values are also very good for this serial interface.

Similarly, in ATTO Disk we see quite constant rates in most block sizes read and written, always above 480 MB / s in writing and 530 MB / s in reading. The maximum performance in IOPS (inputs and outputs) has been 91K for reading and 75K for writing, while Kingston in his tests has obtained 90K and 80K respectively, so it is not bad.

We continue with AS SSD, which is always more demanding and shows lower values, this being the case as we see in the results. However, the IOPS are very good and practically the same as the previous software. Finally, Anvil´s registers similar AS SSD values in reading and writing and slightly lower IOPS. It is interesting to see that the latencies of this unit are very low, especially in write mode.

Regarding the temperature we do not have much to say, only that it has been correct and has never exceeded 40 ^o C working at maximum performance in stress programs or in large file transfers. So in general, very good feelings and good results for a very balanced unit.

Final words and conclusion about Kingston KC600

We finish this analysis of the SSD drive proposed by Kingston. In general we already say that it gives us excellent feelings, since it is an SSD available in enough storage capacities and with very good performance results as we see in the previous screenshots.

We are facing an SSD that takes almost full advantage of the SATA III bus capacity, with sequential rates of over 550 MB / s for reading and 515 MB / s for writing. Furthermore, the performance of the SM2295 controller is very good with IOPS exceeding 90K in almost all cases.

We recommend our guide to the best SSDs of the moment.

As usual we have 256-bit AES hardware encryption, being practically a standard in most units. Life expectancy is also doubled than for example A400 units which are only a few euros cheaper, with a 5 year warranty and a good aluminum package.

We finish with the price and availability, and this Kingston KC600 1 TB drive is found on the official website for 149.64 euros, which is not bad for what it offers and its durability. We still do not see the 2 TB version available, although in the specifications it comes as existing. A highly recommended SSD for those who want massive storage in solid state and tuned in quality / wreck.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ ALMOST PERFORMANCE ON THE ROOF OF THE INTERFACE	- NOTHING REVIEWABLE FOR THE PRICE
+ QUALITY / PRICE
+ GOOD DURABILITY IN TWB AND 5 YEAR WARRANTY
+ AVAILABLE FROM 256 GB TO 2 TB