Is the old SATA really dead? Kingston still sells millions of A400 SSDs

Kingston Technology has announced that it has surpassed the milestone of 100 million units sold for the SATA A400 SSD, a model introduced in 2017 and that has become one of the most widely used solutions in the entry-level consumer segment.

The A400 series was designed to offer an economical alternative to traditional mechanical hard disk drives, focusing especially on improving overall system responsiveness. Over the years, the product has found its place in updates for older PCs as well as in low-cost configurations, thanks to its compatibility with the SATA interface and reduced power consumption compared to conventional HDDs.

According to the specifications stated by the company, the A400 SSD reaches sequential speeds of up to 500 MB/s in reading and 450 MB/s in writing, values that represent a significant increase compared to traditional hard drives. The capacities are 240, 480, and 960 GB. However, actual performance can vary depending on the hardware platform used, the software, and the type of workload executed.

In the statement released by Kingston, Tony Hollingsbee, SSD Business Manager for the EMEA area, emphasized that the commercial success of the A400 series confirms the strong demand still present in the SATA SSD market, especially in the mainstream segment. The company also highlights its intention to continue developing high-performance NVMe solutions, enterprise SSDs for data centers, and embedded products for industrial and mission-critical applications.

Despite the growing prevalence of PCIe NVMe drives, the SATA market continues to maintain a relevant role, especially in older systems and laptops that do not have M.2 slots. In this context, products like the A400 remain a popular choice for low-cost upgrade operations, providing immediate benefits in terms of operating system boot times, application loading, and data transfer.