New Sort-A Thumb Drive Retains NVMe Efficiency

Kingston’s new merchandise within the transportable flash-based exterior cupboard space have met with good market reception over the past yr or so. Two merchandise particularly – the Kingston XS2000 and the DataTraveler Max – proceed to stay distinctive out there with no different comparable merchandise being broadly obtainable.

The XS2000 stays the one transportable SSD with a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) interface geared up with a local flash controller (that brings price and power-efficiency advantages over bridge-based options). The Kingston DataTraveler Max USB flash drive (UFD) – one other product with a local flash controller – was launched in August 2021. It marketed 1GBps-class speeds, low energy consumption, and a Sort-C interface – all in a thumb drive form-factor. At present, Kingston is increasing the DT Max collection with three new drives – all sporting a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-A interface.

This evaluation digs into all of the three capability factors – 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB – within the new DTMAXA collection sampled by Kingston. We’ll be having a look on the efficiency, energy effectivity, and worth proposition of the DTMAXA. We have additionally cracked the drive open in an effort to decide variations between the {hardware} within the unique DT Max and the brand new DTMAXA merchandise.

Introduction and Product Impressions

Bus-powered exterior storage gadgets have grown each in storage capability and speeds over the past decade. Because of fast developments in flash expertise (together with the appearance of 3D NAND and NVMe) in addition to sooner host interfaces (comparable to Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2), the market has seen the introduction of palm-sized flash-based storage gadgets able to delivering 2GBps+ speeds.

The thumb drive kind issue is enticing for a number of causes – there is no such thing as a separate cable to hold round, and the casing might be designed to incorporate a keyring loop for portability. Distributors comparable to Corsair and Mushkin briefly experimented with SATA SSDs behind a USB bridge chip, however the thermal resolution and dimension made the UFDs barely unwieldy. The introduction of high-performance native UFD controllers final yr from Phison and Silicon Movement has made this class viable once more.

Kingston’s DT Max collection retains the normal DataTraveler thumb drive form-factor. Nonetheless, it takes full benefit of the USB 3.2 Gen 2 connector by promising 1GBps speeds. Out there in three capacities – 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB, and in each Sort-C and Sort-A connector variations, Kingston says that they will ship these excessive speeds throughout all six SKUs. We had carried out an intensive investigation into the 1TB capability level of the DT Max Sort-C model final yr. Kingston claims that the brand new Sort-A additions to the DT Max collection are the identical because the corresponding Sort-C ones when it comes to efficiency, capability, and kind issue, apart from minor modifications to the colour and Sort-A connector. We got down to verify these claims.

The brand new Sort-A collection shares the identical sliding cap design to guard the connector. The blue LED energy indicator and keyring loop are retained. The brand new connector makes it essential to barely lengthen the UFD and in addition provides a few grams to the load – specifics within the desk on the finish of this part.

The teardown course of was much like that of the Sort-C model. With no screws within the design, all the things is held by small plastic tabs. Apart from the connector change, the one distinction we may spot on the board was the up to date flash bundle half quantity. Whereas final yr’s Sort-C model used the FPxxx08UCM1-7D (with Micron’s 96L 3D TLC), the brand new DTMAX collection makes use of the FBxxx08UCT1-AF (with Toshiba’s BiCS5 112L 3D TLC). It isn’t clear whether or not newer manufacturing runs of the Sort-C variations have additionally shifted the flash components – we will solely touch upon our evaluation samples. Kingston continues to retain the Silicon Movement SM2320 native UFD controller.

For the reason that publication of our DataTraveler Max Sort-C evaluation, now we have processed various completely different drives with our up to date testbed and check suite. For comparability functions, now we have chosen various 1TB and smaller-sized direct-attached storage (DAS) gadgets.

CrystalDiskInfo gives a fast overview of the capabilities of the inner storage machine. For the reason that program handles every bridge chip / controller in a different way, and the SM2320 has not but discovered its approach into the tracked controllers, most of the entries are marked as vendor-specific, and a number of the capabilities (such because the interface) are deciphered incorrectly. The temperature monitoring labored effectively, although – similar to it did for the Sort-C model.

S.M.A.R.T Passthrough – CrystalDiskInfo
Kingston DTMAXA/1TBKingston DTMAXA/512GBKingston DTMAXA/256GBKingston DT Max 1TBSamsung MUF-256DA 256GBOWC Envoy Professional Elektron 1TBSamsung T7 Contact 1TB	Kingston DTMAXA/512GBKingston DTMAXA/256GBKingston DT Max 1TBSamsung MUF-256DA 256GBOWC Envoy Professional Elektron 1TBSamsung T7 Contact 1TBKingston DTMAXA/1TB

The desk under presents a comparative view of the specs of the completely different storage bridges introduced on this evaluation.

Comparative Direct-Connected Storage Gadgets Configuration
Facet	Kingston DTMAXA/1TBKingston DT Max 1TBKingston DTMAXA/256GBKingston DTMAXA/512GBSDP G-DRIVE 2TBSamsung MUF-256DA 256GBOWC Envoy Professional Elektron 1TBSDP G-DRIVE ArmorLock 2TBSamsung T7 Protect 2TBSamsung T7 Contact 1TB	Kingston DT Max 1TBKingston DTMAXA/256GBKingston DTMAXA/512GBSDP G-DRIVE 2TBSamsung MUF-256DA 256GBOWC Envoy Professional Elektron 1TBSDP G-DRIVE ArmorLock 2TBSamsung T7 Protect 2TBSamsung T7 Contact 1TBKingston DTMAXA/1TB
Downstream Port	Native Flash	Native Flash
Upstream Port	USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-A (Male)	USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-C (Male)
Bridge Chip	Silicon Movement SM2320	Silicon Movement SM2320
Energy	Bus Powered	Bus Powered
Use Case	1GBps-class, compact USB thumb drive with retractable cowl for Sort-A connector	1GBps-class, compact USB thumb drive with retractable cowl for Sort-C connector
Bodily Dimensions	91.2 mm x 22.3 mm x 9.5 mm	82.6 mm x 22.3 mm x 9.5 mm
Weight	14.5 grams	12.5 grams
Cable	N/A	N/A
S.M.A.R.T Passthrough	Sure	Sure
UASP Assist	Sure	Sure
TRIM Passthrough	Sure	Sure
{Hardware} Encryption	Not Out there	Not Out there
Evaluated Storage	Toshiba BiCS5 112L 3D TLC	Micron 96L 3D TLC
Value	USD 180	USD 180
Assessment Hyperlink	Kingston DTMAXA/1TB Assessment	Kingston DT Max 1TB Assessment

Previous to wanting on the benchmark numbers, energy consumption, and thermal resolution effectiveness, an outline of the testbed setup and analysis methodology is offered.

Testbed Setup and Analysis Methodology

Direct-attached storage gadgets (together with thumb drives) are evaluated utilizing the Quartz Canyon NUC (basically, the Xeon / ECC model of the Ghost Canyon NUC) configured with 2x 16GB DDR4-2667 ECC SODIMMs and a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD – the IM2P33E8 1TB from ADATA.

Essentially the most enticing facet of the Quartz Canyon NUC is the presence of two PCIe slots (electrically, x16 and x4) for add-in playing cards. Within the absence of a discrete GPU – for which there is no such thing as a want in a DAS testbed – each slots can be found. In actual fact, we additionally added a spare SanDisk Excessive PRO M.2 NVMe SSD to the CPU direct-attached M.2 22110 slot within the baseboard in an effort to keep away from DMI bottlenecks when evaluating Thunderbolt 3 gadgets. This nonetheless permits for 2 add-in playing cards working at x8 (x16 electrical) and x4 (x4 electrical). For the reason that Quartz Canyon NUC would not have a local USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, Silverstone’s SST-ECU06 add-in card was put in within the x4 slot. All non-Thunderbolt gadgets are examined utilizing the Sort-C port enabled by the SST-ECU06.

The specs of the testbed are summarized within the desk under:

The 2021 AnandTech DAS Testbed Configuration
System	Intel Quartz Canyon NUC9vXQNX
CPU	Intel Xeon E-2286M
Reminiscence	ADATA Industrial AD4B3200716G22 32 GB (2x 16GB) DDR4-3200 ECC @ 22-22-22-52
OS Drive	ADATA Industrial IM2P33E8 NVMe 1TB
Secondary Drive	SanDisk Excessive PRO M.2 NVMe 3D SSD 1TB
Add-on Card	SilverStone Tek SST-ECU06 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Sort-C Host
OS	Home windows 10 Enterprise x64 (21H1)
Because of ADATA, Intel, and SilverStone Tek for the construct elements

The testbed {hardware} is just one section of the analysis. Over the previous couple of years, the standard direct-attached storage workloads for reminiscence playing cards have additionally developed. Excessive bit-rate 4K movies at 60fps have turn into fairly frequent, and 8K movies are beginning to make an look. Sport set up sizes have additionally grown steadily even in transportable recreation consoles, due to excessive decision textures and paintings. Retaining these in thoughts, our analysis scheme for transportable SSDs and UFDs entails a number of workloads that are described intimately within the corresponding sections.

• Artificial workloads utilizing CrystalDiskMark and ATTO
• Actual-world entry traces utilizing PCMark 10’s storage benchmark
• Customized robocopy workloads reflective of typical DAS utilization
• Sequential write stress check

Within the subsequent part, now we have an outline of the efficiency of the Kingston DTMAXA drives in these benchmarks. Previous to offering concluding remarks, now we have some observations on the UFD’s energy consumption numbers and thermal resolution additionally.