Kingston SSDNow UV400 480GB SSD Review

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As the name suggests, Kingston's UV series brings the ultra value. The new UV400 should be a very popular product for value-focused shoppers because Kingston designed it to provide high capacity flash-based storage on a beggar's budget.

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Conclusion

It's hard for me as an enthusiast to like an entry-level SSD when there are so many good products in the mainstream and premium categories. The Samsung 850 EVO's price keeps increasing, so the gap between the entry-level products and one of the best consumer SSDs ever made keeps getting wider. The UV400 480GB is a good buy, not because it's a good SSD, but because it is a solid value.


We like the Upgrade Bundle model better than the bare drive and would spend a little more for the accessory package. The bare drive costs just $115, and the bundle adds a little more than $10 to the final price, but I dare you to find all of the accessories for $10 from another source. Shipping alone will cost you that much.

We know the performance of the other UV400 SSDs is lower than what we measured with the 480GB models. In smaller capacities, it would be better to shop for an older SSD with higher quality flash and an 8-channel controller. You will not get exceptional flash-based performance out of the UV400 as a boot drive because of its lackluster performance with random data. You could use the UV400 480GB to supplement another SSD. We've demonstrated in past articles that SSDs slow as you fill them with data. Dividing the data between two SSDs is a good way to keep the fresh out of box-like performance for the operating system drive. It's easy to force Steam to install games on a separate drive. At this price, the UV400 480GB fits a number of abnormal roles.

For mainstream use, the Kingston UV400 480GB is just another entry-level SSD designed to replace hard disk drives. You can count on the drive to deliver a better user experience over a hard drive, and flash-based storage products deliver higher reliability, as well. The performance and user experience is like taking the last bite of a cookie. You get the taste of flash, but not a mouthful like you would get from a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB ($156.99). You would notice a difference between the two drives and the 850 EVO is a superior long-term buy, but it costs more. When value outweighs performance, the UV400 is difficult to beat.

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Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • daglesj
    I got one of these in to test a few weeks ago. The sustained Write speeds of 100MBps matched in with my findings too. Not great but 4 times better then the awful BX200 that dropped to USB2.0 speeds. It will do the job.
    Reply
  • Nintendork
    So the drive is so value oriented that the review itself is half done...
    Reply
  • littleleo
    The SK Hynix line is looking Better and Better.
    Reply
  • Lutfij
    I only hope that they didn't send cherry picked units for the purpose of this review. The issue as per their last outing was that Kingston reduced their QC on the Vnow units and were the sole reason why the customers were furious to ask for a refund or multiple RMA's.

    In spite of being a little better than lower end SSD's they should maintain that all customers and reviewers get a fair share of the performance. SK Hynix has been following that trend and it's helped them a lot in the market.
    Reply
  • TadashiTG
    Would take the 850 EVO any time over this thing.
    Reply
  • 3ogdy
    This is so close in price to the V300 where I live that I'm wondering what its point on the market is. Actually, the 120GB version is $1 more eXPensive than the 120GB V300. Go figure.

    Also, ease up on the marketing. "On a beggar's budget"? They don't provide anything special at all: Check Toshiba's Q300, Avexir's E100, Kingston's own V300, SanDisk's SSD Plus. All those are CHEAPER than the so-called UltraValue 400.
    And it's funny how the UltraValue is exactly $1.75 cheaper than Kingston's HyperX and $8 cheaper than a 120GB 850 EVO. Margins must be razor sharp.

    I for one am still waiting for the day these 120GB capacity SSDs are completelyvanished from the market and the 250GB SSDs become the new 120GB. Half a TB SSDs are still extremely overpriced - over $100 for that in 2016?! Those shouldn't be sold for more than $70, but I guess the only thing we can do is avoid the more expensive products till they come down in price or simply wait if we already happen to be on an SSD.
    Reply
  • hp79
    Isn't this the company that switches to inferior parts after initial release?
    Reply
  • cinergy
    Yet another SDD that clearly loses to 850 EVO.
    Reply
  • Pixdawg
    @TADASHITG & CINERGY - the point here is that you can buy two of these or one 850 EVO with the same stash of money. I guess neither of you can grasp the concept of 'value'. Your problem, nobody else's.
    Reply
  • 3ogdy
    18650259 said:
    So the drive is so value oriented that the review itself is half done...

    You must be an AnandTech reader. It's known those guys have more in-depth reviews. Even with Anand gone, some reviews over there really shine in comparison with ...well...the rest of them. Their latest SSD review has three times as many pages as this one, but this one has more content on each page.

    It's definitely taken some time for the reviewer to do this and I appreciate the work. It's not Tom's that's doing a bad job - they do upper-average (if that even exists) to great reviews andsometimes hit the nail on the head, coming up with outstandingly good material. Many other websites do straight up average reviews and it definitely shows. They review things with very little material, outright missing crucial hardware comparisons and it becomes extremely irritating when such omissions occur. "Why the duck would you compare the new E-Class to a 5 year old Renault and not to something like the latest 5-series and the previous generation?". This applies to everything from CPUs to GPUs, SSDs...etc. Had they omitted the 850 EVO in the graphs, I would've called this straight up marketing.

    While in my particular case I disagree with the wording and the UltraValue moniker mainly thanks to the fact that there's no such thing as an even "positive" difference in terms of pricing vs V300, the review is OK.
    Reply