14 DAY TRIAL // Kingmax may not have said anything about the NAND Flash memory market segment turning 25 this month, but it did release a pair of high-performance solid state drives.
The two SSDs that Kingmax will eventually ship for unspecified prices are called SMU32 and SMU35. Both of them are part of the Client Pro SSD line.
The former is suited for laptops, while the latter is intended for desktop personal computers. This is curious because there isn't really much of a difference between the specifications.
In fact, the only distinctive feature is the desktop bracket kit included in the package of the SMU35.
That said, we may as well get the specifications out of the way, starting with the capacities: there will be 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB drives for sale.
The performance, as is usually the case with SSDs, varies according to how much storage (and, thus, how many chips) exists, but the maximum speed is of 550 MB/s when reading and 520 MB/s when writing.
Meanwhile, 4K random write performance is of up to 85,000 IOPS (50,000 IOPS on the 480 GB model).
That's about it for the technical details, and the rest of the feature set isn't all that different from that of most other SSDs, SandForce controller-based or not.
Noiseless operation is a given, due to the lack of moving parts (HDDs have spinning disks). This also provides a higher level of endurance than what hard disks can boast about, including higher shock and vibration resistance).
Finally, premium synchronous flash memory helps maintain performance high over time. That way, startup, multitasking and data transmissions are always up to scratch.
The Kingmax solid state drives have individual product pages (SMU32 and SMU35), but we don't know when the prices and ETA will be disclosed.