SSD

The Kingston A400 SSD is a standard 2.5-inch SATA solid-state drive. The prices for SSDs are so low it doesn’t make sense not to buy one. We are talking about a faster PC boot speed, sleep speed, programs opening noticeably faster, and improving your overall productivity. When it comes to reasonable SSDs, we look at Kingston, which has plenty of solid-state drives with different capacities and targets various markets. Let’s check out the Kingston A400 SATA SSD 

The Kingston A400 is a great drive that features one of the best cost-performance ratios on the market, but how does it stand up against other 2.5-inch SATA SSDs? Let’s find out!

Kingston’s A400 solid-state drive dramatically improves the responsiveness of your existing system with incredible boot, loading, and transfer times compared to mechanical hard drives. Powered by the latest-gen controller for reading and write speeds up to 500MB/s and 450MB/s1, this SSD is 10x faster than a traditional hard drive for higher performance, ultra-responsive multi-tasking, and an overall faster system. Also more reliable and durable than a hard drive, A400 is available in multiple capacities from 120GB–1.92TB².

Kingston A400 comes in a 7mm form factor that is suitable both for laptops and desktop computers.

Kingston A400 SSD Review

Within this article, we will be covering a full review of the A400 SSD, including the following:

• Advantages
• Disadvantages
• Technical Specifications
• Benchmark Tests
• Should You Buy it?
• Alternatives

Let’s get into the review…

We tested the 240 GB model that you see in the picture below. The case of the Kingston A400 is made of light plastic materials, and this SSD drive weighs only 1.4 ounces or 41 grams. Even though Kingston states that A400 is shock and vibration resistant, it feels somewhat fragile, and we would not want to test its stated ruggedness.

Kingston A400 SSD – Pros & Cons

Here’s our summary of the various advantages and disadvantages of the A400 SDD, to help you decide whether it has what you’re looking for:

+ Pros

• Affordable
• Low power consumption
• 3-year warranty
• Solid performance

– Cons

• No software tool
• Not enough performance compared to drives that are slightly more expensive

Kingston A400 250GB SSD Technical Specifications

The Kingston A400 is a standard 2.5-inch SATA solid-state drive. It comes without a SATA cable, with no screws. By the looks of it, Kingston has indeed cut all corners to lower the price tag. Although the Kingston A400 comes in 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB capacities, we chose to talk about the 240GB model.

While the three capacities have the same 500MBps sequential reads, the write speeds differ 320MBps, 350MBps, and 450MBps respectively.

• Form Factor: 2.5″
• Capacity: 250GB
• Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0 (3Gb/s)
• NAND: 3D
• Controller: Phison PS3111-S11
• Flash Memory: Toshiba 15nm TLC
• Data Transfer (ATTO): up to 500MB/s Read and 350MB/s Write (240GB)
• Weight: 41g (240-480GB – 2.5”)
• Power Consumption: 0.195W Idle / 0.279W Avg / 0.642W (MAX) Read / 1.535W (MAX) Write
• Dimensions: 100.0mm x 69.9mm x 7.0mm (2.5”)
• Operating temperature: 0°C~70°C
• Storage temperature: -40°C~85°C
• Vibration operating: 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)
• Vibration non-operating: 20G Peak (10–2000Hz)
• Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF
• Total Bytes Written (TBW)⁴: 240GB: 80TB
• Warranty & Endurance: Limited 3-year warranty with free technical support

Kingston A400 250GB SSD Benchmark Tests

We’ve done separate benchmark tests for the Kingston A400 SSD using Crystal Disk Mark and User Benchmarks. Here are the results:

CrystalDiskMark

• Sequential Read Speed: 0 MB/s
• Sequential Write Speed: 3 MB/s
• Sequential Read Speed (Q32T1): 3 MB/s
• Sequential Write Speed (Q32T1): 1 MB/s
• 4K Random Read Speed: 82 MB/s
• 4K Random Write Speed: 43 MB/s
• 4K Random Read Speed (Q32T1): 2 MB/s
• 4K Random Write Speed (Q32T1): 5 MB/s

Comparing Kingston A400’s claimed 500MB/s read and 320MB/s write speeds for the 240 GB model with the results from CrystalDiskMark, we see that there’s a huge gap in write performance. Sequential performance is good, but not that good either. 4K is where Kingston A400 SATA SSD rises against its opponents.

User benchmark – Average Results

• Sequential Read Speed: 423 MB/s
• Sequential Write Speed: 310 MB/s
• 4K Random Read Speed: 27 MB/s
• 4K Random Write Speed: 55.6 MB/s

Results from the User benchmark show better numbers, except for the 4K random write speed. So far, Kingston A400 nearly delivers what it promises, as peak results surpass Kingston’s claimed performance, reaching a Sequential Read Speed of 511 MB/s and 449 MB/s.

The Verdict

Although Kingston A400 250GB SSD delivers what it claims and sometimes goes even further, can we say it was a great offer in 2020? If you still have an HDD and want to improve an aging laptop or PC, sure. But if you have a more recent PC or laptop, you’d surely want something with more oomph, and Kingston A400 SATA SSD 250GB lacks that. After all, it’s a three-year-old SSD, and as time passed, we’ve seen newer SSDs from both Kingston and its competitors.

Kingston A400 is a great choice for budget users. If you need to speed up your PC and ditch the slow HDD drive that you have, Kingston A400 SSD is a good choice that delivers noticeable speed improvements. It is not the fastest SSD drive that you can get, nor does it use the most durable type of flash memory, but it does feature a 3 years warranty, and it gives you respectable performance at a low price that is hard to beat.