Packaging:
The artwork on the box is nothing over the top, but classy nevertheless. We received the desktop kit version of the SSDNow V Series. Although the packaging may get you a little excited, the real treat is inside the box.
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| Box Front |
Box Back |
Inside, we find the drive along with a SATA cable, mounting bracket, power adapter, and imaging software.
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The imaging software that the drive comes with is Acronis True Image. This allows you seamlessly replace your old hard drive with just the contents of the box (a rare feat for most manufacturers). Users won’t need to reformat and reinstall all of their programs in order to enjoy the benefits of a SSD. Kingston is really appealing to the average user with this kit.
A Closer Look:
For those that have been following the evolution of SSD’s, you’ve probably heard about the JMicron JMF602B storage controller and its infamously problematic history. Well, this drive has one in it. Before you close your browser in disgust, hear this. Kingston claims to have fixed the stuttering problem that this controller is known for. Lucky for you, our testing backs up this claim.
For those that haven’t been following the evolution of SSD’s, a little back story is required. The first wave of entry-level SSD’s that hit the market featured the JMicron controller, including the Patriot Warp drive that we reviewed. This controller has a 16KB onboard cache that would rapidly fill up during small block reads/writes and would cause the operating system to appear to studder. Kingston remedies this by upping the cache to 64KB (which should help eliminate the saturation problem) and installing their own custom flavor of firmware. If you crack open the drive you will see that the chip says Toshiba, but Kingston has assured us that it is in fact a JMicron controller. We’ve been informed by Kingston that their engineers have been working very closely with both JMicron and Toshiba extensively over the last six months to correct that stuttering problem.
