SPECworkstation 3.0.2 Storage Benchmark
SPECworstation benchmark is an excellent benchmark to test systems using workstation-type workloads. In this test, we only ran the Storage component, which is fifteen separate tests.
SPECworkstation performance for the Kingston A2000 1TB is very middle-of-the-road, which in the context of the rest of this review is actually pretty good!
Sustained Write Performance
This is not necessarily a benchmark, so much as trying to catch the post-cache write speed of the drive. While I am filling the drive with data to the 85% mark with 10 simultaneous write threads, I monitor the drive for the write performance to dip to the lowest steady point and grab a screenshot.
Post-cache write speed on the Kingston A2000 is also pretty good! 485 MB/s or so across the length of the drive is better than some higher-end drives, and very much so better than several other drives I have looked at in the past like the Lexar NM620 and the Crucial P2.
Temperatures
We monitored the idle and maximum temperature during testing with HWMonitor to get some idea of the thermal performance and requirements of the drive. Please keep in mind that our test bench is an open frame chassis in a 22C room, but with no direct airflow. As a result, this is not representative of a cramped low airflow case and is instead intended to model temperatures of a drive ‘on its own’.
The Kingston A2000 1TB runs pretty cool, topping out at 61C. Users should have no problems with temperatures on this drive, even in the most cramped chassis.
Final Words
Today the Kingston A2000 1TB is $110 at Amazon. Unfortunately, that price point positions the A2000 as a $10 more expensive drive than the WD Blue SN550 1TB, which has long been a standard-bearer for entry-level NVMe drives and turned in testing results that were generally better and more consistent than the A2000. On the other hand, $110 is the same price point as the Intel 665p 1TB and several other drives in the same performance orbit as the A2000, so the price point is not entirely unexpected.
The Kingston A2000 1TB SSD is not an exciting product, but that is OK. Performance is relatively entry-level, but that lines up exactly with the expectations set by Kingston using both pricing and advertised specifications. When I reviewed the Lexar NM620 1TB and was so disappointed by it, much of that stemmed from a mismatch between pricing, specifications, and actual delivered performance; the Kingston A2000 manages to avoid most of that ire simply by not pretending to be a high-end drive from the start. For users that just need a SSD, I expect the A2000 would do the job perfectly acceptably.
Thanks for the test! Was the most recent firmware installed on the A2000?
One thing to note: Where the A2000 really shines in comparison to the SN550 and other SSDs in this price range is mixed read/write workloads, perhaps due to its DRAM cache. See e.g. TPU review:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/kingston-a2000-1-tb-m-2-nvme-ssd/4.html