Kingston's A1000 is the company's first foray into the growing entry-level NVMe SSD market, and their second consumer NVMe SSD. The A1000 features Toshiba's latest 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory and Phison's second-generation PS5008-E8 NVMe SSD controller. We've previously reviewed that same basic combination in the MyDigitalSSD SBX and found it to be the best drive yet for establishing the viability of the entry-level NVMe market segment.

Kingston brings a few potential advantages to the table that MyDigitalSSD doesn't offer. Kingston is one of the largest fabless memory companies, and they buy DRAM and NAND flash by the wafer. They can perform their own binning and packaging, which gives them extra flexibility in choosing what grade of memory goes into which product line. Kingston also has very close technical and financial relationships with both Phison and Toshiba Memory.