Kingston SM2280S3 120GB M.2 SATA SSD Review

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Test System & Comparison Drives

This is our new Z97 test bench and we thank ASUS again for their generosity in providing the Z97-A motherboard for us to use for our testing. All tests were performed on a fresh and up-to-date install of Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with no other applications running while using AHCI mode set through the BIOS. Synthetic Benchmarks were run with the OS loaded on a Crucial MX100 256GB SSD. In between every test, the test drive was secure erased using an instance of Parted Magic. As such, all results should be indicative of optimal performance with the exception being the PCMark 8 consistency test. Power saving modes, sleep and hibernation are all disabled and all components were set to their default/optimized speeds in the BIOS (1304) and are listed below.

Z97 Test Bench

Legit Reviews Z97 Bench

Intel LGA 1150 Test Platform
Component Brand/Model Live Pricing

Processor

Intel Pentium G3258

Motherboard

ASUS Z97-A (BIOS v.1204)

Memory

Kingston HyperX KHX16C9B1RK28 8GB

OS Drive

Crucial MX100 256GB

Power Supply

Antec Basiq BP550W Plus-EC

Operating System

Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit

Comparison Drives And Other Models We Have Tested

Since there are so many SSDs out there now with different controllers, we started a reference table of which controllers are used by each drive to help you compare results. Different controllers definitely perform differently and each has various strengths and weaknesses. Like CPU’s, even identical drives will have variations in performance and part of that variance may be attributable to the NAND flash used. Since the tests of the drives listed have spanned different test benches and represent different interfaces, we have listed the most recent ones for easy reference.

SSD MODEL CONTROLLER Interface
OCZ ARC 100 240GB/a> Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 SATA III
SanDisk Extreme PRO Marvell 88SS9187 SATA III
Samsung 850 PRO 1TB MEX S4LN045X01 SATA III
Crucial MX100 256GB & 512GB Marvell 88SS9189 SATA III
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512GB Marvell 88SS9189 SATA III
Intel 730 Series 480GB PC29AS21CA0 SATA III
Crucial M550 512GB Marvell 88SS9189 SATA III
OCZ Vertex 460 240GB Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 SATA III
VisionTek PCIe 240GB SSD SandForce SF-2200 (SF-2281) x2 PCIe
WD Black Dual-Drive 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD JMicron JMF667H SATA III
OCZ Vector 150 240GB Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00 SATA III
Corsair Force LS 240GB Phison PS3108 SATA III
Samsung Evo 500GB MEX S4LN045X01 SATA III
Seagate 600 240GB LAMD LM87800 SATA III
OCZ Vertex 450 256GB Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 SATA III
Crucial M500 480GB Marvell 88SS9187 SATA III
OCZ Vertex 3.20 240GB SandForce SF-2200 (SF-2281) SATA III
Samsung 840 Pro 240GB Samsung MDX SATA III
Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB Marvell 88SS9175 SATA III
Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB LAMD LM87800 SATA III
Intel 520 Series 240GB SandForce SF-2200 (SF-2281) SATA III
OCZ Vector 256GB Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00 SATA III
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SandForce SF-2200 (SF-2281) SATA III
Samsung 830 Series 256GB Samsung S4LJ204X01-Y040 SATA III

CrystalDiskInfo 6.1.12 Readout:

For the Kingston SM2280 m.2 120GB drive, the readout on CrystalDiskInfo shows that both NCQ and S.M.A.R.T. are enabled, as well as TRIM. This is a great free tool to see lots of detailed information about the drive such as the firmware version for the drive is S8FM06.A.

Kingston SM2280 - CrystalDiskInfo

Let’s have a look at the performance with some synthetic benchmarks followed up by some real world tests.