So ... as part of CES 2021, we discussed not only new trends that the company will adhere to throughout the year, but also showed new devices for professionals, as well as enterprise-class solutions. Below in the text we will tell you which ones.
Kingston Ghost Tree PCIe NVMe Gen 4.0
Most PCIe 4.0 compliant consumer NVMe drives released in 2020 are based on Phison PS5016-E16 controllers. Unfortunately, they are not able to fully realize the potential of the new interface and fully utilize its bandwidth.
Kingston was in no hurry with the announcements of its solutions, so Ghost Tree PCIe NVMe Gen 4.0 turned out to be optimized and balanced. While competitors offer similar drives with 4-5 GB / s bandwidth, we are talking about 7 GB / s read / write speeds.
The Ghost Tree series drives are also based on an 8-channel controller. While we will not say which one, but we can confidently assert that SSD solutions with a capacity of 1 to 4 TB will be able to fully use the performance of the PCIe 4.0 interface. See for yourself when we publish the first tests on the pages of our blog.
Kingston NV Series Gen. 3.0x4
Along with top-class drives, at CES 2021 we announced a line of PCIe 3.0 devices that are aimed at novice users. The maximum capacity of these drives will be limited to two terabytes, which helps to lower retail costs and make SSD data available to most consumers.
Kingston SSD DC1500M U.2 NVMe
The Kingston DC1500M U.2 NVMe SSD is an enterprise-class drive replacing the Kingston DC1000M U.2 NVMe SSD . This new product provides high bandwidth and low latency, and is designed to be hosted in the latest generation servers.
DC1500M is aimed at solving a wide range of tasks and workloads that imply intensive use of data by a large number of users at a time. The drive is also suitable for data centers engaged in cloud computing, as well as hosting providers and virtual infrastructures that serve and optimize the business processes of companies.
PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
Last year, the Kingston DC1000B M.2 NVMe SSD became the driving force behind the show , but it offered PCIe 3.0 support, which makes sense . With the advent of motherboards offering PCIe generation 4.0, the demand for corresponding drives has grown, so solid-state solutions with support for the new interface will be the forwards of 2021 in our line of NVMe devices.
External SSD Kingston XS2000 with USB 3.2 support
In addition to enterprise and consumer NVMe solutions, we have announced an external USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 SSD that will be offered in capacities ranging from 500GB to 2000GB. Kingston XS2000 is positioned as a high- performance storage for photos, videos and other files, and its main features are high write speed (up to 2500 MB / s) and fast access to the required data. To connect to PCs and laptops, the USB-C port is used, which is the main port when using USB 3.2 Gen 2.
Kingston Workflow: card readers and docking stations for them
And the last interesting thing from CES 2021 is external card readers ( Workflow SD Reader and Workflow microSD Reader ), which can be used both as standalone devices and in conjunction with the Workflow Station docking station. Who and for what might need such gadgets? If everything is clear with card readers (as a rule, photographers and videographers need them to access the data on memory cards and transfer them to a PC), then the docking station should be discussed separately.
Essentially Kingston Workflow Stationallows you to work with several types of card readers at once, which is important if the user needs to work with data recorded on memory cards of different sizes. Let's give an example: let's say that you shoot 4K video for YouTube on a professional camera (with an SD card installed inside) and simultaneously record video on a smartphone (with a microSD card installed inside) to post the resulting video on services like Instagram and TikTok. In this case, the presence of a mini-hub will allow you to simultaneously connect two memory cards of different sizes to your computer and laptop without using adapters (microSD to SD).
It would seem that there are not enough arguments, so let's pretend that the video you have to work with is 4K / 8K. As a result, the final files are heavy, so for copying them to a PC and for manipulating directly within the memory card, a high bandwidth is required, which is realized through a Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen 2) connection. The bottom line: When paired with Kingston's high-performance memory sticks and USB drives, this will dramatically speed up post production workflows.
Outcome
This concludes the excursion into the announcements of new products presented at CES 2021, and move on to discussions. Tell us in the comments which devices do you think are the most interesting and which drives would you like to see tests on the pages of our blog?
For more information on Kingston Technology products, visit the company's official website .