The Kingston Savage 240GB in specific, and the Savage series in general, is an extremely competent Solid State drive. It certainly may not be as fast as PCIE, M.2, or NVMe based models but for its price range it can easily hold its own against all comers. Quite honestly this level of performance is sure to satisfy most consumers and while you could spend a veritable fortune for higher performing models, the real world differences will be minor at best. More importantly, with an asking price so low, nearly anyone’s budget can find room for it. Conversely, consumers who can afford even more expensive models can also choose the Savage and get nearly the same levels but also a better CPU, more RAM, or best of all a faster Video card.
This versatility is obviously what Kingston was aiming for and they hit it out of the park. To be blunt when you can not only come in with a lower asking price but equally, and sometimes better, performance than MX200 series consumer have to take note. Even if you have been burned in the past by Kingston and their silent switch of NAND in the V series you should give this Savage a second look. It is their way of apologizing and trying to make things right.
Now with all that being the Savage series is not just about offering value and out of the box performance. Instead Kingston is looking to the future and once again pushing the boundaries with outside the box thinking. Much like in the past when they were one of the first to make value a priority, Kingston is making long term performance a priority and in a way that is rather distinctive. Because of the rather unique way of dedicating a core to real time IO requests Kingston is able to offer a drive that actually gets relatively faster the longer you use it.
The fact of the matter is, as a drive is used, its NAND becomes dirty and needs to do a lot of internal house-cleaning. This issue is further compounded when the drive is filled up with data as there is less room for house-cleaning. Since almost all consumers actually fill their drive to 75% or more capacity this entry level drive can actually compete against much, much more expensive models and hold its own. Put simply this always stays ahead of these housecleaning duties and it will be bloody difficult to get it into a degraded state. Better still since one core is always dedicated to real time IO requests this house cleaning is nearly seamless – as there is no lag or delay. This is something Marvel and SandForce controllers cannot say. Instead you have to look to NVMe controllers which are just so bloody powerful as to make this issue a non-issue! In other words if you don’t feel like selling a kidney and your first born to get cutting edge long term performance the Savage should be on your short list.
It is for this reason that the Kingston Savage is so cutting edge, and if PHISION ever creates an eight channel version it would quickly vault to the top of the SATA class of drive.
