Kingston NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2TB SSD Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The Kingston NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2TB SSD is available now from Scan.co.uk, with prices looking very reasonable, costing just £109.99 for the 2TB version that we reviewed today. This is replacing the 2TB Kingston NV2 SSD, which is currently priced at £94.99. By comparison, the old model came with read and write speeds of 3500MB/s and 2800MB/s respectively, so this is a tasty upgrade for these more budget-friendly Gen4 drives. You can check for up to date stock and prices here in the UK, or find them on Amazon US here. as prices on storage can change daily. In terms of the value, the price is extremely competitive with Kingston drives as they generally come in costing around £5-20 less than similarly fast drives from the likes of Western Digital, Kioxia, and Crucial.

Conclusion

I’m a big fan of these cost saving products, as not everyone wants or needs the absolute bleeding edge of storage technology, and I’m sure not everyone wants to pay for such things either, as it can get pretty expensive, especially when looking at the high-end, and for most consumers, and especially at home PCs and gaming PCs, it can all feel like wasted money, because you’re not going to see the benifits.

Now, I’ll admit that the multi-BOM strategy does put a bit of a wild card into this product, but so long as they maintain the quality and performance when making any changes, then I see no issue with it, and if changes are more significant, they’re clearly advertised and reflected in the price. This is a great way to keep costs down, to keep production flowing, and Kingston are too big of a brand to really try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. They are clear, up front and honest about what they have on offer and I think consumers will respect them for that too so that’s a win win for everyone because it’s truthful, honest and for the consumer, it cuts down on costs.

When it comes to performance this is a solid Gen 4 drive, and it either met or exceeded its rated specifications when it came to our benchmark suite. Whether it was to come in a little faster, or a little slower; for the types of user that it’s aimed at, you’ll never going to notice it too much in real world usage. What you do notice is that your PC boots nice and quick, your programs and games load faster, and your file transfers go at a good pace for a sustained and steady period.

For those looking to replace a failed drive on a budget, or looking to build a new computer on a tighter budget, it’s hard to ignore these cheaper drives. That being said, the most impactful purchase will likely be for those upgrading aging 2.5″ SSD storage or those on older spinning rust. These drives are more than 10 times faster than SATA SSDs, so you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with one of these 2TB drives along with the nice balance of speed and capacity. For those on older hard drive technology, this is going to be a huge uplift, whether that be in a desktop PC or a laptop. It’s always one of the best upgrades you can do that will give you a boost in speed, more so than a CPU, RAM or graphics card upgrade.

Should I Buy One?

This drive is a versatile solution for a mid-budget storage solution, and it’s great to see that there are a fair few 2TB M.2 drives for little over £100 these days, making super fast storage accessible to a lot more people. For a little more money than the old NV2 its replacing, these drives give a big performance upgrade. Of course, the one-sided design is a big benefit too, making them highly compatible with various system types, like laptops and handhelds. While it’s only slightly cheaper than some rivals, and a little bit faster than many similarly priced products, it’s enough to make it one of the cheapest and quickest drives in its class and is definitely one that we’ll be recommending.