Kingston Targets Enterprise Clients with KC400 SSDs

Kingston is taking the lid off its latest Enterprise-grade SSDs with the SSDNow KC400 series. While metrics such as “15 times faster than a hard-disk drive” are one thing, the KC400 aims to deliver end-to-end data security thanks to SmartECC protection and SmartRefresh to safeguard against read errors, as well as firmware designed to preserve data against sudden power loss events.

As any long time SSD user knows, flash errors are unavoidable. ECC protection is still not a guarantee for data integrity, especially as the lifespan of the flash begins to wear out. SmartECC allows for automatic data reconstruction when traditional ECC fails, through an additional layer of NAND RAID ECC overprovision built into the SSD.

In contrast, SmartRefresh is Phison’s solution for managing NAND wear performance at the block level, providing preventative maintenance by refreshing blocks when necessary to maintain performance. As an additional layer of protection, all data sent between the controller to the DRAM and to the NAND flash, is verified by CRC integrity checks before being committed to flash.

The Kingston SSDNow KC400 is a 2.5-inch SATA 3.0 drive powered by the Phison PS3110-S10 eight-channel quadcore controller and will be available in 128, 256, 512, and 1TB capacities. As an additional measure Kingston includes its SSD manager software for full drive health monitoring, Enterprise SMART information checking, and drive usage statistics.

Performance ratings are as expected for a SATA interface drive with sequential performance of 550/530MB’s for most models. Random 4K read/writes start at 86,000 IOPS and only going up from there. For endurance, the 1TB model is rated for 1600TB total writes or 0.89TB direct writes per day with the expected five years warranty and support from Kingston. Pricing information is not yet available, but you can find out more information for the SSDNow KC400 SSD, by heading over to the press release PDF.