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Kingston

Kingston KC3000 Spec and Price in the United Kingdom

NVME2TBM.2 22807000 MB/s read

Released October 25, 2021

Built on Phison's E18 controller with TLC NAND and a DRAM cache, the KC3000 delivers 7000 MB/s in both directions and up to 1 million random IOPS, flagship-class numbers for a PCIe 4.0 drive. Its 1600TB TBW rating dwarfs the 640TB figure Kingston lists for the NV3, making it the sibling built for creators and workstation users who write large volumes of data repeatedly rather than users running general desktop workloads. The 5-year warranty backs that endurance claim as much as the raw speed numbers.

Tied 34th of 106 models in the SSD catalog on Sequential read — 9 models share this figure. Tied 14th of 106 models in the SSD catalog on Sequential write — 2 models share this figure.

Current best price

No tracked price — this page compares specifications alone.

Specifications

Capacity
2TB
Interface
NVME
Sequential read
7000 MB/s
Sequential write
7000 MB/s
Random read
1000000 IOPS
Random write
1000000 IOPS
PCIe generation
4
Form factor
M.2 2280
NAND type
TLC
DRAM cache
Controller
Phison E18
Endurance (TBW)
1600 TB
Warranty
5 years

Capacities

ConfigurationPart numberEndurance (TBW)Sequential writeSequential read
512GBSKC3000S/512G400 TB3900 MB/s7000 MB/s
1TBSKC3000S/1024G800 TB6000 MB/s7000 MB/s
2TBSKC3000D/2048G1600 TB7000 MB/s7000 MB/s
4TBSKC3000D/4096G3200 TB7000 MB/s7000 MB/s

Guides for this category

How to choose an SSDFour questions decide almost every SSD purchase — what fits, how big, how fast, and how much it should cost.NVMe or SATAWhich interface your machine takes, how to tell without opening it, and what the speed difference actually buys you.How much SSD capacity you actually needHow to size a drive from what you already use, why leaving headroom matters, and when one bigger drive beats two small ones.M.2 sizes and SSD form factorsWhat 2280, 2242, and 2.5-inch mean, which one your machine takes, and how to check the keying before you buy.What SSD speed numbers actually tell youSequential versus random performance, why the number on the box describes the rarer case, and how to read it without being misled.PCIe generations for SSDsWhat Gen 3, Gen 4, and Gen 5 change, why a newer drive always works in an older slot, and when the extra speed is worth paying for.TLC, QLC, and DRAM-less SSDsWhat the NAND type and the controller's cache change about how a drive behaves, and when either is worth caring about.SSD endurance and warrantiesWhat TBW and DWPD actually promise, how much a normal machine writes, and when endurance is worth paying extra for.How to install an SSDFitting an M.2 or 2.5-inch drive, choosing between cloning and a clean install, and what to check on the first boot.When an SSD price is actually goodWhy price per terabyte beats any discount percentage, and why a good price on one capacity says nothing about the others.

What owners and reviewers say

Summarised from 3 source(s), reviewed September 13, 2026. A source is counted only where it names this model exactly. How we track prices

Commonly praised

  • Fantastic real-life performance with outstanding sustained writes, an onboard cache and a very large write cache.
  • Available in high capacities and console-compatible, under a five-year warranty.
  • A graphene-aluminium heat spreader helps disperse heat, with very strong sequential reads and competitive overall performance.
  • Owners report very fast sequential speeds and quick boot and load times, sometimes beating flagship drives in benchmarks.
  • Several owners consider it well priced, often on sale below competing drives, with a higher endurance rating.
  • Owners report it runs cool.

Commonly criticised

  • Expensive, and thermal throttling occurs because the heatsink is too weak.
  • Its performance tier keeps it chasing the established leaders.
  • A few owners note slow random small-file write speeds in benchmarks, though they say it is not noticeable in use.
  • An owner reports a fresh Windows install did not detect the drive until a driver was downloaded.

Sources behind this summary

Sources

Every spec above was pulled from one of these — a field a source didn't state was left off rather than estimated.