Kingston Launches KC100 Enterprise SSDs; Features 5-Year Warranty

Just weeks after the launch of Kingston’s first SandForce SF-2281 solid-state drive with the HyperX series, the company is now announcing the launch of its SSDNow KC100 lineup targeted at business and enterprise solutions. KC100 is a 2.5″ SSD powered by the latest generation of SandForce’s award-winning controllers, and as such KC100 uses a native SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) connection featuring some impressive performance metrics.

For the 240GB part KC100 will offer 540MB/s reads and 450MB/s writes, with a sustained read/write IOPS of 40,000 / 60,000 respectively. It will also feature SandForce’s DuraClass technology to provide for data assurance. Most notably, Kingston is offering a full five year warranty on these drives.

SandForce’s DuraClass technology is comprised of several technologies that together deliver world-class data integrity, reliability, and performance without compromising power efficiency. DuraClass features advanced wear leveling and intelligent garbage collection designed to minimize wear on flash endurance, and of course includes ECC (Up to 55 bits/512B) correction and safeguards against, and in case of, flash block failures.

Perhaps most notable is the Enterprise SMART tools available to these drives. System administrators will have access to “Reliability Tracking, Usage Statistics, Life Remaining, Power Loss, Wear Leveling, Temperature, and Drive Life Protection” through these Tools. Translated, this means IT staff can monitor drive wear in real time, data usage, reliability, and life remaining at the NAND flash level in real time.

As with all SandForce-powered SSDs, the KC100 offers full self-encryption with the option of AES-128 or AES-256 data encryption at the drive level, meaning there is no impact on system resources. Drive performance is also not impacted when enabling drive encryption.

Overall KC100 looks to be an impressive enterprise class SSD offering, and the enterprise SMART tools should be particularly attractive feature for enterprise customers. With Kingston standing behind its product to offer a full five year warranty and built-in AES-256 encryption there isn’t much left to ask for. KC100 will be offered in 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB capacities with an MSRP of $353, $665, and $1,285 respectively for the upgrade kits. Stand-alone models will also be available.

For those interested, here are some more specs:

Kingston SSDNow KC100 Features and Specifications:

• Sequential Reads 6Gb/s¹:
  • SATA Rev. 3.0 – 120GB & 240GB: 555MB/s; 480GB: 540MB/s
  • SATA Rev. 2.0 – 120GB, 240GB & 480GB: 280MB/s
• Sequential Writes 6Gb/s
  • SATA Rev. 3.0 – 120GB & 240GB: 510MB/s; 480GB: 450MB/s
  • SATA Rev. 2.0 – 120GB, 240GB & 480GB: 260MB/s
• Sustained Random 4K Read/Write²:
  • 120GB: 20,000 / 60,000 IOPS
  • 240GB: 40,000 / 60,000 IOPS
  • 480GB: 60,000/45,000 IOPS
• Max Random 4K Read/Write
  • 120GB: 90,000 / 70,000 IOPS
  • 240GB: 95,000 / 60,000 IOPS
  • 480GB: 77,000 / 45,000 IOPS
• Form factor: 2.5″
• Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s), SATA Rev 2.0 (3Gb/s) and SATA Rev 1.0 (1.5Gb/s)
• Guaranteed: five-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support
• Enterprise S.M.A.R.T Tools: Reliability Tracking, Usage Statistics, Life Remaining, Power Loss, Wear Leveling, Temperature, Drive Life Protection
• Capacity³: 120GB, 240GB, 480GB
• Storage temperatures: -40°C – 85°C
• Operating temperatures: 0°C – 70°C
• Dimensions: 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm
• Vibration operating: 2.17G
• Vibration non-operating: 20G
• Operating shock: 1500G
• Power specs: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.6 W (TYP) Read / 2.05 W (TYP) Write