Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB Solid State Disk

Introduction

Since their release, Solid State Disks (SSD’s) have been geared towards enthusiasts. With the ability to offer the user phenomenal read speeds and shockingly fast writes, loading games, pictures, and applications is a breeze. The Kingston SSDNow V Series was reviewed back in July 2009, geared more towards the average enthusiast that wants the speed of an SSD, with the price of a HDD. The next level up in performance is the SSDNow V+ Series. Offering up to 512GB, and 230MB read speeds, this SSD is not one to be overlooked if performance is what you’re gearing your system towards.

Kingston’s Take

Dramatically Increase the performance of existing systems

Kingston® introduces the new SSDNow V+ solid-state drive to help consumers and organisations of all sizes enhance the performance and lifecycle of computers that have a Serial ATA (SATA) interface. Faster and more reliable than a standard hard disk drive, SSDNow V+ is now available in 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB capacities.

Packaging

The packaging if the Kingston SSDNow V+ Series is nothing special. The drive is wrapped in an anti static bag and held in place and prevented from moving around the container by a plastic shell and the other contents. The boxing is attractive and may catch your eye, sitting on the shelf, but beware, the surprise is still contained within.

	Top/Front of Packaging is easily mistaken between the V Series drives. The only distinguishable difference is the fact that they use a different secondary color scheme.
The rear of the packaging lists all the vital information about the drive in a couple of different languages.
	Within the cardboard packaging, there is a plastic shell that holds all the vital components from being damaged in transport.
Once you remove all the components from the form fitting plastic shell, you can see all the components that come with this drive. this one for example comes with a 2.5″ enclosure and a 3.5″ mounting kit.

Included in the packaging, we can see that the drive comes with a 3.5”mounting bracket, a 2.5” enclosure (just in case you want to use it as a portable drive), and all the necessary cables, nuts, and bolts to hook it up in any environment.

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A Closer Look

	The top of the drive is fairly plain. all of the vital information is easy to read and out in the open, making identification easy.
On the bottom of the drive, we see the screw holes that can be used to remove the back cover. if you do remove these and check the drive, you will see that Kingston paired up with Toshiba to make some of the parts, but also that it is solely a Kingston manufactured drive, rather than a re-branded patriot.
	On the side of the drive, you can see the SATA cable and SATA power connector.
This is the drive mounted in the 3.5″ adapter, which is mounted to a standard Thermaltake HDD tray.

Features:

• Innovative – Uses MLC NAND flash memory components.
• Silent – Runs silent and cool with no moving mechanical parts.
• Shock Proof – No moving mechanical parts so the SSD handles rougher conditions.
• Supports S.M.A.R.T. – Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology tells the user when a drive is about to fail
• Guaranteed – 3 year legendary Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support

Specification

• Capacity* – 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB
• Storage temperatures – -40 – 85°C
• Operating temperatures – 0 – 70°C
• Dimensions – 69.85 x 100 x 9.5 mm
• Weight – 84 grams
• Vibration operating – 2.7G (7-800Hz)
• Vibration non-operating – 20G (10-2000Hz)
• Sequential Read Throughput – 230MB/s
• Sequential Write Throughput – 180MB/s
• PCMark HDD 2005 Score+

64GB – 38,177
128GB – 38,065
256GB – 38,272
512GB – 37,974

• Form Factor – 2.5″
• Interface – SATA 1.5 Gb/sec. and 3.0 Gb/sec
• Power specs – 2.6 W – active / 0.15W Idle
• Life expectancy** – 1,000,000 Hrs mean time before failure
• Operating shock – 1500G

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Test Rig

Operating System

• Windows 7 Professional – 64-Bit

Desktop

• Motherboard
  • ASUS Crosshair III Formula
• RAM
  • 4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600mhz
• Processor
  • AMD 965 Black Edition
• Graphics Card
  • nVidia GTX 285 (Primary- Powering 1 x 22″ Monitor)
  • nVidia 7600 (Secondary- Powering 2 x 22″ Monitors)
• Case
  • Thermaltake Armor+ LCS
• PSU
  • Enermax 1250W PSU

Laptop

• Dell XPS M1330
• Upgrades
  • 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
  • Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB

Testing was performed on both a laptop, as well as a desktop to show both environments that this SSD might face. The reasoning behind this is that a desktop will perform much differently than a laptop. To provide the most accurate testing of the product, below we listed the results form both. We also wanted to compare this drive to the fastest Hard Disk Drive, to show the differences in seek time, read speed, as well as write speed. Another notable thing about this SSD is that it supports the TRIM feature in Windows 7. This means that the drive will perform better and have a longer life. Now, without further adu, lets see what this drive has to offer

SiSoft Sandra 2010

SSD Performance on XPS Laptop	SSD Performance on Desktop

As you can see from the results above, the drive performs differently on different setups. Even with the limiting factors of the laptop, this Kingston SSDNow V+ is still able to break the 150MB/sec without breaking a sweat. With the desktop setup, this drive flys past 200MB/sec. The seek time is unmatched by any of the available drives that SiSoft can find on either system, meaning that your data is found much quicker than the other drives, and might even be displayed on your screen before the competition knows whats going on.

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HDTune

SSD Performance on Desktop (Left) SSD Performance on Laptop (Right)
VelociRaptor Performance on Desktop

The main purpose of this test was to show the exact differences over time that your drive will present. As you can see, the Kingston SSDNow V+ is fairly steady, accessing the data just as quickly in the first few seconds as it does in the final seconds. This is something that the lightning fast VelociRaptor can not claim. The Western Digital not only shows a slight decline in performance over time, but its spikes in performance drop drastically lower than that of the SSD. This is not to say that the VelociRapter is a bad drive, it is a Hard Disk Drive. It will have these flaws for that fact and that fact alone. The performance of any HDD would look similar, only slower.

CrystalDiskMark

SSD Transfer Speed on Desktop Computer
SSD Transfer Speed on Dell XPS Laptop
VelociRaptor Transfer Speed on Desktop

This again represents the performance that the Kingston SSDNow V+ brings to the table. Cranking past 230MB/s, the SSD actually outperforms the specifications printed on the box. This is not something that you see every day. The specs clearly state “Sequential Access – Read       up to 220MB/s” and “Sequential Access – Write      up to 170MB/s” I thought that this might be a mistake on my behalf, so I ran the tests again and again. after getting the same results four times in a row, I was amazed. This may be a misread by the software, and if it was it wouldn’t surprise me. Rarely do you see a leap in performance that great between two types of testing.

Conclusion

The blazing fast read and write speeds of the Kingston SSDNow V+ make it a force to be reckoned with. When looking at the price tag of $512 (MSRP), you must keep in mind that this drive is geared solely to the enthusiast. The average person really has no need for this drive and could save a few bucks by going with the regular SSDNow V Series. It may be almost double the speed of the regular V Series, but you have to keep in mind that its almost twice the price. For what this drive is geared towards, you almost can’t go wrong. Although the MSRP is $512, you can probably find it cheaper if you shop around a little. For example, you could wait to 2/28/10 and pick it up on Newegg for a mere $349.00. Put head to head with the Western Digital VelociRaptor, the SSD does nothing but shot that it can do everything that a HDD can do – better. Start times between both drives was greatly noticeable. Start time for the VelociRaptor was around 20 seconds to get into Windows, whereas the Kingston SSDNow V+ start time was dropped to around 11. With the amazing speed this drive has to offer, and the support for such features as TRIM, we almost have no choice but to give this SSD and Awesome Hardware Award

Pros

• Blazing fast Read Speed
• Blazing Fast Write Speed
• TRIM support (Yes, it does work!!)
• Made by Kingston, not just rebranded
• Unmatched seek time

Cons

• Price