When the subject of Solid State Drives or “SSD”comes up, price and storage capacity are still the two main obstacles facing the product category. Although issues with early controllers dampened their start, things have improved. Reliability has increased and so has performance. They’re also a performance upgrade that benefits both notebook and desktop users alike. With more and more SSDs hitting the market, we’re also starting to see huge reductions in once astronomical prices, particularly in the more usable 64GB – 128GB range.
One good example of the benefits of economies of scale, increased reliability and performance is Kingston Technology’s new SSDnow V-Series drives. This 128GB drive that we have on the bench retails for right about $229. If you remember same time last year, a similar sized drive was easily double that price. Clearly the V in V-Series also stands for value, but how much of that is taken away in performance? Kingston says they worked hard with controller manufacturers to get the price point and performance just right. We’re definitely anxious to see if it’s ready for the mainstream user. On with the review!
Features and Specifications
An important thing to point out here is that this is basically a first generation SSD with some of Kingston’s behind the scenes tweaking. As a complement to their other offersings such as the the E Series and M Series SSDs, the goal of the V-Series SSDNow is to offer a complete retail boxed solution at an affordable price. The performance goal was set to better than a standard desktop or laptop SATA II hard drive. This is reflected in its 100 MB/s read and 80 MB/s write speeds. It’s also completely silent, shock resistant, still supports S.M.A.R.T. and is backed up by a Kingston 3 year warranty and 24/7 tech support, which is competitive with most mechanical drives.
Speaking of competitive, the SSDnow V-Series 128GB unit that we have here today also boasts a super low 2.5 Watt (active) and 0.45 Watt (sleep) power consumption numbers which will give notebook users a boost to their battery life and desktop users a few more cents off the power bill. Also impressive is the 1 Million hour MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure).
This drive comes in a 128GB and 64GB size and is sold in either a desktop specific or a notebook specific bundle that comes with everything you need to get it installed.
What’s in the Box?
The packaging is pretty simple and says Kingston all over it. After removing the plastic lid which has the Kingston logo on it, you’ll find an included Utility Disc with a useful mass clone drive program from Acronis, power adapter cable, SATA cable, 3.5″ brackets, and screws. As noted, Kinston makes two kits, one for desktop and one for notebook and this one reflects the desktop kit (SNV125-S2BD/128GB). The notebook kit is known as the SNV125-S2BN/128GB and basically excludes the drive rails, power and SATA cables for a USB enclosure.
The important thing to note here is that this is the complete 128GB SSD bundle. You don’t have to run out or hunt down adapter brackets when you want to install the drive in your particular desktop system which is somewhat different than what other manufacturers are doing by simply supplying the drive. The mounting brackets adapt the 2.5 inch drive to a 3.5 inch bay and aren’t anything fancy, but more than functional. It would have been unique to dress the kit up with some nifty anodized or painted brackets, but the drive is V for value and that would inevitably drive up the price.
A Quick SSD Anatomy Lesson
People often ask what the differences are between the memory ICs inside the SSD and RAM modules. It’s a logical question since both are built with memory chips of some sorts. RAM modules use volatile memory ICs which mean they require power at all times in order to hold data that your system needs to function. If you cut power to the RAM, your system simply stops functioning.
SSD modules (and USB drives) use non-volatile ICs called Flash NAND which doesn’t require power to hold data. When your system is powered off, it will reliably store and retain any data you’ve added to it. NAND producers are few which accounts for the premium to produce the parts and is the main reason why SSDs cost what they cost. And now back to the review!
Does Value Mean Cheaply Made?
While I didn’t have the pleasure of owning any first generation SSDs, I did experience some problems with early controllers. Those glitches included stuttering, small data block performance drops, and odd access issues mainly caused by a combination of said SSD controllers and compatibility issues with some motherboard chipset controllers. You’ll be pleased to know that the Kingston 128GB SSDNow V-Series Solid State Drive has updated controllers and we’ll be looking for these issues in the benchmarks.
As you can see, SSDs are much smaller than conventional hard drives and weigh far less when compared to this dated IDE Maxtor that we used purely for size empahsis. The day we see some larger capacity SSDs will be a great day for people lugging their heavy systems to LAN Parties. Even laptops can shed a few extra ounces. Every little bit counts when you need to lug a 9 pound laptop around al day.
Other than its size, there’s nothing fancy about the SSDnow V-Series in its appearance. The housing of the SSD is made from lightweight aluminum and seems fairly well put together. There’s nothing cheap about it in terms of fit and finish. The back end has the same standard SATA power and data cable headers as conventional mechanical drives.
Looking at the size of the SSD had me contemplating what future computer cases were going to look like. Perhaps, by that time, prices will be so low that everyone will be flaunting four to ten large capacity SSDs inside a much smaller sized computer cases. I’m sure there’s a manufacturer thinking up ways to trim some more aluminum off a case to offer a more exotic looking enclosure.
Desktop Installation Notes
There aren’t any special directions to mounting the 3.5″ adapter brackets to the SSD. With a little bit of patience, it’s easy to see how the brackets work. There’s two sets of holes for installing up to two SSDs per bracket set. However, I like extra space underneath my drives for tucking wires underneath as well allowing some kind of air flow. It’s just a habit of mine since hard drives can get pretty warm.
The drive was installed in to the Cooler Master Storm Series Scout Gaming Case that we recently reviewed. I chose this case because it’s basically an elite gamer’s budget performance case and is designed for mobility. A couple of tool-less brackets later and the SSD was mounted. Using Kingston’s brackets, one could install up to 12 SSDs in the lower bay of this case!
The test system was assembled based on parts that exhibited the best mix of mobility and performance. The full manifest includes:
- Intel Core i7 975 Extreme Edition [D0 Stepping] Processor
- ASUS ROG Rampage II Gene X58 Micro ATX Motherboard
- Kingston HyperX 6GB 2000 MHz Triple Channel DDR3 Memory Kit
- ZOTAC Geforce GTX 295 Graphics Card
- Kingwin Mach 1 1000Watt Power Supply
Our Kingston SSDnow V-Series will be going up against the fairly common Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATAII hard drive in our tests.
Aside from plugging in the drive, Windows installed a bit quicker on the SSD than my Seagate 500GB SATA II drive. I’d say it knocked off about 5 minutes easy. And boot times were dramatically reduced despite my Vista installation that I keep well tuned. Speaking of which, there is one final very important note.
Due to the design of the NAND used in all SSDs, it is important to disable Disk Defragmentation in your operating system lest you want to wear out your shiny new SSD prematurely. Some vendors put this important information in the documentation while some don’t. We’ll save you the hassle and inform you it’s the same for all SSDs on the market until we’re told otherwise. Now let’s see what the Kingston SSDnow V-Series can do!
Performance Testing
The basic purpose here is two fold. We wanted to check stock drive performance as well as confirm that there were no controller issues inherited from first generation drives. SANDRA and ATTO were used extensively. While SANDRA covers synthetic performance, ATTO actually creates and uses real files. Testing concluded with some real world file transfer times. On with the benchmarks!
SANDRA Hard Drive Benchmark
SANDRA offers basic transfer rate performance by testing Overlapped Input/Output requests. Data caching was disabled and overlapped Input/Output was enabled. SSD testing reported 115.45 MB/s read and 92MB/s write rates. That’s quite a bit more than any of the SATA II drives on hand scoring only 59.97 MB/s read and 51.54 MB/s write. It even bested its own specifications which had it asssigned to 100 MB/s read and 80 MB/s write.
Some things that SANDRA doesn’t take in to account in greater detail are the specific sequential or random read and write times. It also doesn’t report individual data block speeds. Let’s check out ATTO.
ATTO Hard Drive Benchmark
Using uncached and overlapped I/O settings, the results were similar in that the SSD makes far better use of an actual 125MB file of choice versus a synthetic. These kinds of tests tend to present more real world scores.
The Seagate 7200.11 was tested first. As you can see above, the actual scores probably look a little familiar if you’re using a non-Raptor grade SATA II drive of your own that’s not in a RAID configuration. Pay attention to the 2, 4, and 8KB transfer rates as we move on to the SSD test.
The Kingston V-Series 128GB SSD peaked at 127 MB/s read and 94 MB/s write. Not surprisingly, the SATA II brought up the rear topping out at 54 MB/s read and 53 MB/s write.
You’ll notice that the 2, 4, and 8KB data block results are noticeably slower than the SATA II. The 8KB block scores in roughly 20 MB/s slower than the SATA II drive when working with 8KB data blocks and lower. However, when working with 16K data blocks and larger, it is an entirely different matter. The SATA II just can’t keep up.
Windows Boot Tests
Alright, this one may seem more trivial than it is. One of the benefits of using SSDs is that a laptop or desktop system both take less time to boot up. That’s because the system doesn’t have to wait quite so long for the hard drive to catch up.Boot times were basically cut in half when using the SSD. Getting to the desktop was naturally far quicker especially when six start up programs were added to the task.
Copying and pasting files didn’t yield a whole lot of difference because I only had the one V-Series on hand at the time of testing. The SSD kept the SATA II maxed out at all times but still did manage to accept file transfers faster given its higher write performance.
Test Summary
Despite the rough start for early SSD drives and their problematic controllers, none of the stuttering issues were seen during the endless round of tests. All programs executed as required, files transferred properly. In fact, if anything, the V-Series Kingston was noticeably smoother compared to my very common Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB Drive. In fact, in many of the tests, the Kingston bested its own specifications for read and write speeds.
The one issue that seems to remain is the low transfer rates on the smaller data blocks. However, without the graphs, I would not have noticed as the SSD completed every test and task much, much faster than the SATA II. With an access time of roughly 1ms at all times, it’s no wonder why it flies. Otherwise, depending on the I/O requests, the Seagate 7200.11 would sometimes require even more time compared to the Kinston SSDnow V-Series.
Final Thoughts and Concluson
So the question is, do we need a Kingston SSDnow V-Series…now? The answer to the question depends on what purpose an SSD fulfills. If you need the drive for a special purpose and performance, then even this value oriented 128GB model will suffice as your primary OS drive.
Ultimately, professional and power enthusiasts who have programs that can greatly benefit from SSD performance would be more than happy seeing their load times drop and productivity increase. This would also include laptop users who frequently travel for business since the V-Series doesn’t mind being tossed around and shaken. Not to mention, the battery life benefits of SSD can equate to a few more minutes of extra productivity on the road. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that professional gamers would find the durability and performance worth the cost.
Even now, some of the LAN party events are seeing a few SSDs in circulation. SSDs won’t improve your frame rates. But, there are some bragging rights as you sit in game waiting for everyone else still booting up or loading up the next map in your favourite FPS shooter. It’s also much easier to transport a case with much lighter weight SSD drives inside.
The downside to SSDs is still capacity versus cost. Again, the complete Kingston SSDnow V-Series 128GB bundle can be found for about $229. The larger 256GB size, when released, will probably cost you about twice that. The thing everyone would like to see is more NAND readily available whether it be new or current providers. We do expect prices to continue dropping as we approach the end of the year.
At a modest size, the Kingston 128GB V-Series Solid State Drive will serve you best hosting your Operating System and the bulk of the programs of your choice for quick boot and fast access times. Your aging SATA II hard drive would best compliment the SSD in a backup capacity or file storage capacity.
The Kingston SSDnow V-Series SSDs will definitely add some new found speed and spirit to your current system configuration. The inclusion of a complete instatllation bundle as well as a competitive pricepoint make this drive a great value for a truly plug and play experience.
Pros
- Faster sustained performance than hard drives
- Perfectly silent during operations
- 1ms response times
- Lighter, far more compact than hard drives
- Twice as many fit in a case
- Great for laptops
- Best value for cost
Cons
- Limited capacities for the cost
- Could use matching brackets
- Slower than SATA II on small data blocks
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
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Kingston SSDnow V-Series 128GB Solid State Hard Drive Photo Gallery
