If you’re a content creator, chances are you might build your own PC. Whether that's a Windows-based desktop, Linux, or a macOS centric “Hackintosh,” you have very specific needs for your hardware. At the very heart of those needs (after a high-performance processor) is a very fast SSD drive.
Kingston has announced a new line of NVMe SSDs that will make your home-built editing rig scream with performance, and look good doing it.
NVMe stands for Non-Volatile Memory Express and refers to how the drives exchange data across the motherboard’s PCI-Express highway, much like how video cards use PCIe to push video signals at greater refresh rates. The faster the refresh rate, the less latency. Gamers rely greatly on that to keep their performance edge.
What's also unique about NVMe SSD is its size, which is based on the M.2 form factor.
I like to think of it as what would happen if RAM and SSD had a baby. NVMe SSD is a lot smaller than SSD and typically has an M.2 footprint. While SATA-based M.2 drives aren’t going to give users any speed benefits, they do keep the interior of your computer clean and tidy without having to deal with cable management.
Conversely, the new NVMe Gen 2 Kingston drives offer faster speeds, five or six times faster than SATA-based M.2 drives. M.2 NVMe drives can take similar advantage of this “fast lane,” plugging directly into motherboards.
The M.2 drive rests parallel to the motherboard after connecting, so there are no cable management issues. And you don’t need space to lock down your drive, either. The physical sizes are so compact that Kingston’s 4TB drive is about half the size of a standard SATA based 2.5” SSD.
Kingston’s Gen 2 NVMe M.2 drives take full advantage of this speed and compact size.
Credit: Kingston
Codenamed “Ghost Tree,” Kingston’s first PCIe NVMe Generation 4 hard drives sport read/write speeds over 7,000 MB/s and sizes reaching 4 terabytes. Meanwhile, first-time PC builders or those looking to move into the M.2 NVMe form factor to replace their earlier generation SSD drives can get high performance from Kingston’s NV series, which come in capacities reaching 2TB. Laptop users don’t have to worry either, with Kingston’s new XS2000 USB 3.2 external drive, a USB-C connected SSD drive that has speed data transfer rates of up to 2,000 MB/s.
Anchor M.2 drives are still a bit pricey, but they are expected to drop to more affordable levels in 2021. So if you’re building a new PC or Hackintosh, and are not worried about paying a premium for an extra burst of speed, then you may want to invest in these new Kingston NVMe M.2 drives once they hit the market.
Any boost in speed will help save time on your workflow in the long run.
