Review of Kingston SSDNow V300 240GB SSD
- Specifications and Features
- The Review
- Conclusion
So my wife was complaining, as wifes do, that her computer was slow. I upgraded it to a quad core CPU and doubled the ram but yet it was still too slow for her so I decided to get her an SSD which should be a drastic improvement over the mechanical drive that was in there. I picked up a Kingston V300 240GB SSD for a good price but I was curious as to really how much of a difference it might make going from a mechanical hard drive to the SSD. The difference was as excepted, night and day really, but I thought I would make a quick review out of it and share the results with you. Read on to learn more…
Specifications and Features
Kingston Digital 240GB SSDNow V300 SATA 3 2.5 Solid State Drive (SV300S37A/240G)
Get more life out of your computer and maximize your existing investment by replacing your old hard drive with a Kingston SSDNow V300 solid-state drive. It’s the most cost-efficient way to dramatically improve the responsiveness of your system–and it’s less disruptive than migrating your data to a new system.
Kingston’s SSDNow V300 is:
Faster–improves speed of loading applications and system boot up
Reliable–with no moving parts, solid-state drives are less likely to fail than traditional hard drives
Economical–design is optimized to make migrating to an SSD more affordable
Convenient–all-in-one kits are available with all the components needed for a fast and easy installation
Multiple capacities–up to 240GB, to fit your workload
Silent–runs silent and cool
Dependable and durable
SSDNow V300 features an LSI SandForce controller customized for Kingston and optimized for next-generation Flash memory to deliver the utmost in quality and reliability from two leading SSD brands. Because it’s made with solid-state components and has no moving parts, it’s shock-proof and withstands drops and bumps.
Read Speed: Up to 450MB/s
Write Speed: Up to 450MB/s
Price: $76.99 (from Amazon at time of review)
The Review
No packaging for the SSD, it was a bare drive purchase, I didn’t need anything else though as I know a little a bit about what I’m doing. The SSD is fairly plain looking, but that’s fine as all the ‘magic’ happens on the inside. There’s a just a label on the front and then the SATA connectors on the back or bottom.
The Kingston SSD was bought to replace a Western Digital 750gb Caviar Black hard drive, which for its time was rather fast.
Before I installed the drive I was curious as to how much of a difference there would really be in terms of performance so I ran some tests.
My system I’m testing on is an ASUS 797-A/USB 3.1 motherboard with an Intel Core i7 4790K CPU.
I also have the Kingston HyperX 3K 240gb SSD that I tossed in for some better comparative testing, SSD vs SSD as it were.
The first test I ran was using the benchmark called AS SSD, and as the name suggests it’s a test just for SSDs.
According to this test the V300 is rather slow, very slow actually which doesn’t seem right to me. Sure it’s a bit faster than most mechanical drives but still slow for an SSD. According to the test the HyperX is also slower than rated as well. Not sure what’s going on there.
The next test I ran was CrystalDiskMark on all three drives, the HyperX 3K, V300 and the Western Digital 750gb mechanical HDD.
So according to CrystalDiskMark the V300 isn’t that much faster than the WD mechanical drive in terms of write speeds, and the V300 is about 85mb/s faster than the WD drive for read speeds. Again got some odd results that I wasn’t expecting.
The last test I ran was Atto Disk Benchmark, which is the most common test everyone uses and it’s the one that I always turn to for my testing so it’s the one that I trust the most, companies use it as well for their testing.
So here’s the max speeds that Atto reported:
Write: in MB/s
WD: 102652
HyperX 3K: 523776
V300: 510091
Read: in MB/s
WD: 106946
HyperX 3K: 552841
V300: 527637
In this test the V300 performs as expected, better than expected really as the specs say up to 450mb/s for read and write and both show results over that.
I was more curious as to the odd results so I also ran SiSoft Sandra Physical Disks Benchmark on the SSD drives and got similar results to Atto.
HyperX 3K : Drive Score : 512.4MB/s (with a maximum of 531.62MB/s)
V300 : Drive Score : 513.13MB/s (with a maximum of 523.88MB/s)
Conclusion
I would have to say that the Kingston V300 SSD is a nice upgrade over the Western Digital Caviar Black surely.
The test results I got were odd sure, two say similar things and the other two say something similar as well but totally different from the first two.
Who do you believe? Atto is used by most everyone so I would have to trust that I would think.
I can tell the SSD is much faster than the mechanical drive. Once I cloned the drive to the SSD I immediately saw an improvement in boot time and in overall system quickness or responsiveness. Despite what some of the tests say there is a big difference between the mechanical drive and the SSD and you can feel it when you use your computer.
I’d have to say the SSD is good upgrade, but we knew that already anyway didn’t we? SSDs are always faster than mechanical drives.
+Inexpensive
+Decent performance overall
Cons:
-Odd results from testing
| Grading | Scores Out of 10 |
| Overall | |
| Design / Aesthetic | |
| Value / Price | |
| Performance / Usage |
Disclosure: This product was given to us for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review.
To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.
- Specifications and Features
- The Review
- Conclusion
Kingston SSDnow V300 240GB SSD Review
Kingston SSDnow V300 240GB SSD Review
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Today i don’t know if things changed as much as we had all hoped back then especially since mechanical disk drives are still the dominant storage media in the market but noone can deny that things have changed for the best. For example where a few years back one would have to update the CPU and RAM of a system to improve its responsiveness now people need just an SSD. However not all has been good in this industry since i bet many of you may still remember some cases where certain manufacturers were accused of using the old «bait and switch» marketing trick with their SSD models. Among those was Kingston and they were accused of replacing the 19nm NAND flash modules found in their first batches of the SSDNow V300 SSD line with lower-performance 20nm asynchronous ones. We did test one of the early V300 models (120GB) back then but since i always heard about this bait and switch trick i decided to take a look at one current SSDnow V300 model to see if what I’ve been hearing for roughly 3 years now is true.
However instead of the 19nm Toggle NAND flash memory modules by Toshiba Kingston used back then this time over it has 20nm MLC NAND flash memory modules by Micron a change which at least to what I’ve been reading is responsible for considerably reduced read/write performance. Do keep in mind that although back in January 2013 we reviewed the 120GB V300 model and so the 240GB model should have slightly better read/write performance if what is said stands then even with that small «boost» it should still underperform compared to its smaller capacity brother.
Kingston V300 120GB, 7mm Slim SSD On a Budget
Shawn Michaels
March 18, 2013
Hardware, Reviews & Articles, Storage
4 Comments
Today we look at the new V300 Drive from Kingston which is a Sandforce based drive pointed at the value segment to get a sub $1/GB drive to the masses, now lets see what this drive has to offer.
INTRODUCTION
The world of SSD’s is constantly advancing and with that the price has also began to fall as more and more units are manufactured and NAND prices drop making them cheaper to produce. Well Kingston is taking direct aim at the value market with the new V300 series which is below the $1/GB mark and also a great performing drive to top it off. Kingston has taken the reigns with the manufacturing effort as well when it comes to packaging the 19nm NAND and even the SF-2281 controller from Sandforce/LSI. Kingston has also worked directly with Sandforce/LSI on some special modifications to ensure the controller meets the performance and functionality they want to see from the drive.
Present market price for this drive is $109.99 directly from Newegg. This places it at well below the $1/GB mark like I said before and places it right in the ballpark with other drives of the category.
Specifications
Pictures & Impressions
Click Image to Enlarge
The V300 comes in a very standard consumer box package with some minor detailing of spec but mostly just notables about transfer speed and advertising being 10X faster than standard desktop HDD.
The rear has some detailing as to what is included in the packaging along with detailing about the 3 Year warranty which is nice, although some of the industry is heading for 5 year so this is something Kingston may want to address.
Click Image to Enlarge
Here we see what comes in the box. The contents are held within another eggcrate style recycled box (I do like the environmental responsibility shown here). Within this you can see the bundle includes two DVDs, one including instructional and manual materials while the other is bootable with a HDD cloning software to make transitioning from an old HDD to the new V300 super easy.
Also included in the bundle is an external USB enclosure for the SSD which can be connected to the host computer to easily image the HDD data to the SSD so that all you have to do is swap it in and power it on.
Click Image to Enlarge
Here you can see that the V300 being 7mm thickness is 2mm thinner than the standard SSD you normally get, and this is nice as this can be dropped into an ultrabook which is very tight on space for a nice upgrade if your ultrabook happen to have a slower HDD installed, which many do.
Also in case this is going into a notebook that uses standard thickness drives you can also use the plastic rectangle you see here next to the drive which makes it thicker so that it will not be loose in a bigger drive cavity should it be replacing a 9mm+ thickness drive. It is simple to use as it just sticks on with double sided adhesive.
Click Image to Enlarge
Here we get a look inside. Straight away there are 16 total NAND chips which one is reserved for provisioning to allow for better wear leveling and basically spare NAND as the controller needs it. These NAND chips are branded Kingston but are actually 19nm Toshiba toggle NAND, and do note that I have not seen or used these units yet so this will definitely be a new one to me as well as all of you most likely.
The controller is also marked Kingston but is a custom tuned SF-2281 controller which I have seen and tested in many drives, which now days it is almost hard to find a drive that doesn’t use this controller, as it is a very popular controller for its performance and efficiency.
Testing & Methodology
SSD testing can be a bit subjective as a lot of times they are not tested on similar components or at different times. We test our drives as the boot drive with a fresh OS image to ensure all the same drivers updates and OS conditions are observed. Testing with the drive as the boot drive with the OS residing on it will result in a much more realistic experience for the end user as just using it as a secondary drive and running benches on an empty drive will likely skew results and deliver different performance than you will see when using it in your system.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the tests are done on as clean of an OS as possible as a Secure erase was performed before installation.
Test Rig
| Test Rig | |
| Case | Thermaltake Level 10 GT |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3770K/Intel Core i7-2600K |
| Motherboard | ASUS Maximus V Formula |
| Ram | 16GbpsB Patriot Viper Xtreme 2400MHz + |
| CPU Cooler | Swiftech h30-220 Edge |
| SSD | Kingston V300 120 GB SSD |
| Optical | ASUS BD-ROM |
| GPU | ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP |
| Additional Cards |
N/A |
| PSU | Thermaltake Toughpower XT 1275W Platinum |
| Mouse | Tt eSPORTS Black gaming mouse |
| Keyboard | Tt eSPORTS Meka G1 mechanical gaming keyboard |
Test Suite
We will use the following applications to test the performance of the SSD.
Benchmarks
| Benchmarks |
|---|
| PCMark Vantage |
| ATTO |
| Crystaldiskmark |
| Startup/Shutdown |
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Vantage is a viable full spectrum system test utility. However due to the fact that today I am testing this SSD I have omitted the other system tests in favor of the drive testing to see exactly how it performs.
Here PCMark offers separate scores for different drive loads. As you can see the V300 SSD offers very good performance for anyone jumping from a HDD based system and shows as a very worthy upgrade for anyone looking to get a quick speed up of their system.
CrystalDiskMark benchmark
CrystalDiskMark is a good performance gauge used commonly to check I/O performance for storage drives by testing multiple sizes from 4k and up along with pure sequential speeds as well.
Here CrystalDiskMark shows some very high numbers with even 4k’s pulling a decent result compared to many I have seen previously.
One thing to note is that CrystalDiskMark uses incompressible data which is handled differently at the controller level as it is a larger file size that would have to be written whereas compressible data is compressed at the controller which means a smaller file size has to be written and is therefore faster.
ATTO drive benchmark
The ATTO Benchmark will show the raw numbers and for this we ran the drives in a secondary state with a 600GB Velociraptor as the boot drive so that the drives could be tested with the full available capacity.
ATTO is one of those tools that most SSD manufacturers use to show the maximum throughput which may not necessarily be obtainable in real world usage but it does show the drives capabilities and possible bottlenecks as well.
Here you can see the drive simply flies even hitting well past the advertised spec which is awesome as sometimes drives get close but do not achieve such speeds.
Startup/Shutdown times
Startup and shutdown times are probably some of the most noticed differences with a SSD upgrade. When you start your system getting it to the boot screen as quickly as possible is the goal of most users and overclocking has always increased productivity and even some boot speed for a long time now but there has always been the old platter drive which was the big bottleneck. With SSD’s this has all changed as we have seen some systems that can now power up from a resume state in a matter of seconds thanks to a super fast SSD.
Here you can see that the start up time which was timed with a digital stopwatch app on my phone from the time I pressed the power button to the time it was at the desktop and nothing else was loading. Now mind you this is a fresh OS with no other programs such as Steam or anything else loaded, so your results may be slightly longer but I can only imagine that time difference would be marginal and completely dependent on programs you have running at start up.
Shut down time is extremely fast as all services are stopped and system, is powered off. I used the same method to test which was starting a timer from the time I pressed the Shutdown icon to the time the system powers off. as you can see this is extremely fast.
CONCLUSION
The Kingston V300 is aimed at the value mainstream market and I think they hit it dead on, as the V300 is a snappy and very fast drive. Are there faster, yes, but are you going to see that different in everyday usage I would say no. Unless you are sitting rewriting to your drive non stop or enjoy running SSD benchmarks back to back all day this SSD is going to serve you very well with amazing speed and responsiveness for your everyday tasks.
Being below $1/GB is a big deal but many are moving that direction now, and seeing Kingston take on much of the manufacturing to further reduce costs tells me they are serious about positioning themselves in every level of the market much like they have done in memory.
The slim design with included adapter means you can fit this in virtually any configuration including Ultrabooks although Kingston does sell a separate version of this same model which utilizes slightly different accessories for Notebook upgrades and the one we have today was specifically provisioned for desktops. When looking at what I received I think it could easily drop into a Notebook all the same.
Anybody looking to upgrade from a mechanical drive to a cheap fast SSD should look at the V300 as it will likely fit the bill for what you need. Even if the 120GB I have here is not right for you they go up to 240GB if you need more capacity and for most people that will be more than enough.
| OUR VERDICT: Kingston V300 120GB SSD | ||||||||||||||||
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| Summary: The Kingston V300 aims and hits the mark on a value based SSD which also offers sub dollar per Gigabyte pricing and for this, it earns the Bjorn3D Golden Bear Award. |
Please note that the final score isn’t an aggregate average of the new rating system.
Tags 120 fast kingston lsi. 2281 SandForce sf-2281 sf2281 ssd value
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Valve is an interesting company that seems to try to be a lot of things at the same time.
Games company, software hub/store and hardware company. Valve is all of these.
When it comes to hardware the company has had mixed success. I think many of us remember the Steam Machines. These compact computers running SteamOS, a Linux based OS, were supposed to make Windows PC’s obsolete for gaming. They didn’t succeed. Valve also released a specific controller, the Steam Controller, which also did not exactly set the world on fire.
In hindsight though both these products have paved the way for the product I am testing today, the Steam Deck, Valves attempt to compete with the Nintendo Switch in the handheld market.
A small review of Kingston V300 120GB SSD
Greetings to all who looked at the light. The review will focus, as you probably already guessed, on the high-speed SSD drive Kingston V300 SV300S37A / 120G with a capacity of 120 GB . Who cares, you are welcome under the cat.
Upd, added test results after partition alignment
General photo of Kingston SSD:
Brief performance characteristics:
— Manufacturer — Kingston
— Series — V300
— Model number — SV300S37A/120G
— Storage capacity — 120 GB
— Body material — metal
— Drive type — SSD (solid state drive)
— Drive form factor — 2.
5 «
— Interface — SATA 3.0 (6 Gb / s), backwards compatible with SATA 2.0 (3 Gb / s)
— Sequential read speed — 450 Mb / s
— Sequential write speed — 450 Mb / s
— Random read speed (for 4 KB blocks), IOPS — 85000
— Random write speed (for 4 KB blocks), IOPS — 55000
— Power consumption — 0.640W (simple) / 1.423W (read) / 2.052W (write)
— Chip type — 16 MLC NAND chips (Kingston FT64G08UCT1-8B)
— Controller — LSI SandForce SF-2281 (Kingston CL13821Z)
— TRIM support — yes
– Time between failures (MTBF) – 1 million hours
— Manufacturer’s warranty — 3 years
— Operating temperature — 0 ~ 70°C
– Dimensions – 100mm*70mm*7mm
— Weight — 86 gr.
Complete set:
The parcel came in a standard package, covered with a bubble wrap inside. To protect against mechanical damage, the packaging was wrapped in several layers of isolon. The drive itself comes in a transparent plastic blister:
Unfortunately, during a cursory examination on the packaging, speed characteristics could not be found.
You can only see the manufacturer’s assurances that this drive is 10 times faster than the average 7200 rpm hard drive.
Appearance:
The SSD is quite compact. For mechanical protection and heat dissipation, the case is made of metal and removes heat from the chips through a thermal pad:
Larger serial number and model name:
Rear SATA connectors (data and power):
Drive dimensions:
Dimensions are small, only 100mm * 70mm * 6.5mm:
Here is a comparison with a retired 3.5″ Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120 GB hard drive:
The weight of the SSD is already decent, because the case is metal:
Mount:
Many people have a question, where and most importantly, how to mount the SSD drive. Solutions set (ideally the first two):
— in a special sled designed for installation in a 3.5 «(for drives or hard drives) or 5» (CD / DVD drives) bay. They can be bundled with an SSD drive, a system case, or purchased separately:
— in special recesses on the case of the system unit, usually on the back of the motherboard (not in all):
— on double-sided / thermally conductive tape to the case of the system unit (you can “lock” it with ordinary tape)
— in 3.
5″ or 5″ bay for one or two screws
— do not fix it at all and leave it hanging / lying inside the system unit, unless, of course, the connectors are loose. The SSD drive does not contain moving parts, so it can be installed in any position, resistant to vibrations, shocks and falls.
This SSD has standard mounting holes (four on the bottom and four on the sides):
Intestines:
Disassembling the drive is easy enough if you have a screwdriver with a mini-star bit. To do this, you need to carefully peel off the branded sticker from the sides:
Directly under it are 4 screws. Unfortunately, I do not have a “mini-star” nozzle, and such screws cannot be unscrewed with an ordinary watch screwdriver. I honestly tried but failed, :-(:
The information provided below on the guts is not mine and is taken from the site www.overclockers.ua for review:
Inside, there are 16 Toggle Mode MLC NAND memory chips, designated as Kingston FT64G08UCT1-8B, manufactured according to the 19-nm process technology.
The original manufacturer of storage devices is Toshiba. Thermal pads are used to transfer heat from the memory chips to the aluminum case:
The microcontroller is marked as Kingston CL13821Z, but in fact, the developer and manufacturer of the control chip is LSI, so we have an old friend — SandForce SF-2281:
To confirm the screenshots of the programs SSD-Z 16.01.18 beta:
Installation in the system:
By default, the drive comes with an unallocated area, therefore, after it is detected in the system, the logical disk button does not appear. First we need to mark it up and format it. In XPush, to do this, open the disk wizard either through the menu «Start-> Programs-> Administrative Tools-> Computer Management-> Disk Management», or the «diskmgmt.msc» command through Start-> Run or from the command line. After that, we see an unallocated disk. Allocate and create a logical drive. Optionally, it can be divided into two logical disks:
After formatting the SSD, the drive will be visible as a regular drive.
XPush SSD properties:
Important note. To increase the speed of work and activate some additional functions, it is recommended to switch the SATA controller mode from IDE to AHCI. This is switched in the BIOS (when you turn on the PC, press the «Del» button). You can read about the integration of SATA drivers into an already installed Windows XP operating system here.
Differences between IDE standard mode and AHCI:
— Support for «hot swap drives» («Hot Plug») — is used to disconnect the disk «on the fly» without turning off the computer (relevant for docking stations and RAID arrays)
— Built-in command queuing (NCQ) — technology to improve performance. NCQ-enabled devices are able to accept multiple requests at the same time and rearrange the order in which they are executed to achieve maximum efficiency (performance)
— Support for TRIM function (no support in XPush) — designed specifically for SSD drives to maintain high performance
Let me also remind you that the SATA transfer interface has three revisions and therefore has speed limits:
— SATA Revision 1.
0 aka SATA I (up to 1.5 Gb / s) — interface bandwidth up to 150 MB / s
— SATA Revision 2.0 aka SATA II (up to 3 Gb / s) — interface bandwidth up to 300 MB / s
— SATA Revision 3.0 aka SATA III (up to 6 Gb / s) — interface bandwidth up to 600 MB / s
In other words, when you connect a SATA III SSD to a motherboard with a SATA II interface, the latter will limit the speed of the drive. In my case, my motherboard Asus M4A78 only supports SATA II, so the maximum speeds of the drive are not available to me …
Testing:
Let’s see what popular benchmarks show us.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 Indications in brief:
— Seq — run sequential read / write test
— 512K — launching a test for random reading / writing blocks of 512 KB
— 4K — launching a test for random reading / writing blocks of 4 KB (queue depth — 1)
— 4K (QD32) — launching a test for random reading / writing blocks of 4 KB (queue depth — 32)
Drive speed in AHCI mode:
AS SSD Benchmark 1.
8.5636:
— Seq — run sequential read / write test
— 4K — launching a test for random reading / writing blocks 4
— 4K (QD32) — launching a test for random reading / writing blocks of 4 KB (queue depth — 64)
— Acc.time — access time
Well, for the company test USB Flash Benchmark:
Due to the fact that my Asus M4A78 motherboard does not support SATA III, and Windows XP is not the best suited for working with SSDs, the speeds turned out to be low.
Here is a test of a similar Kingston SV300S37A/120G SSD on a PC with SATA III support (my results are on the left):
But when compared with the usual hard drives, the speed increase is noticeable, even despite the restrictions on the SATA II bus (my results are on the left):
Pros:
+ Brand, quality assurance
+ good speed
+ low power consumption
+ compact dimensions
+ no noise
Cons:
— limited number of overwrite cycles
— some speed degradation when the drive is full (a feature of the SandForce SF-2281 controller)
— price
Conclusion: Judging by numerous tests on the SATA III bus, Kingston V300 SV300S37A/120G is a very good SSD drive with a decent amount of memory on board.
Even on SATA II, the speed increase is dramatic compared to conventional screws. Before that, I had a RAM disk with a virtual machine and a cache of various programs, now there is no need for it, because the OS was still on the hard drive.
An SSD drive is a very good thing and it seems to me that it should be in any ordinary computer that does not have RAID arrays and other goodies, but 40 GB of a disk may be enough for someone. Anyway, I don’t call for a purchase, but believe me, when you move the OS to an SSD drive for the first time, you will be very pleasantly surprised by the speed of work … , valid until May 31, 2016
Kisa:
The product was provided for writing a review by the store. The review is published in accordance with clause 18 of the Site Rules.
Review and test of the solid state drive Kingston SSDNow V300 240Gb — i2HARD
Evgeny Serov
June 29, 2013
Once again, Kingston has pleased us with interesting pieces of iron.
Today we got a Kingston SSDNow V300 240 GB solid state drive and Kingston HyperX RAM …
Once again, the company Kingston pleased us with interesting pieces of iron. Today we got a solid state drive Kingston SSDNow V300 with a capacity of 240 gigabytes and RAM Kingston HyperX Beast with 16 gigabytes. consumer home computers or portable systems. At the moment, solid-state drives Kingston SSDNow V300 are available in three “weight” categories: 60, 120 and 240 gigabytes. We got the drive with the maximum capacity.
Packaging and Contents
The SSD was packaged in a fairly large cardboard box for an SSD before we got to it. Compared to the packaging of Kingmax SMU35 Client Pro 240Gb, it is at least a couple of times larger than the previous test object.
The cardboard is quite soft and begins to wrinkle after the first touch, although this is not so important. . On the front of the box is a photo of the drive and its name. A little to the right, there are several conspicuous windows: an SSD upgrade package, “10 times faster than a regular HDD” and, of course, information with SSD characteristics — a volume of 240 gigabytes, a read and write speed of 450 Mb / s. Also on the front is a logo with a guarantee, which, by the way, is 3 years and a hologram of the controller used — SandForce.
The most basic information is located on the sides: model name, volume and manufacturer’s logo.
More detailed painting on the back. Starting with the configuration and ending with the order of installing the firmware and additional software.
In addition to the previously remembered logos, there is also a QR code.
By the way, on the inside of the package there are warranty conditions in many languages. Russian is also among them. We almost attributed the packaging to the weak side of the device until we decided to open it. Further, it was found that the entire kit is located in a dense protective cardboard box, and the SSD itself was under a plastic cover.
Package Contents:
- Kingston SSDNow V300 240Gb;
- SATA cable;
- Power cable;
- Attachment basket;
- Installation DVD;
- Instructions for use disc.
Appearance and specifications of
Oddly enough, in terms of dimensions, Kingston SSDnow V300 is no different from its counterparts and competitors with a 2.5-inch form factor. The thickness of the drive is only 6 mm. You can’t tell much about the appearance of such devices, because they are all as similar as possible.
It should be noted that building Kingston SSDnow V300 looks pretty solid, and most importantly inspires confidence. Metal was most likely used as the material. There is a glossy sticker on the front side of the drive, on which all the information about the solid-state drive is located.
On the back — 4 bolts and holes for mounting in the bracket.
The printed circuit board contains 8 proprietary chips from Kingston and a SandForce controller. The physical volume of each chip is 32 gigabytes, and a total of 256 gigabytes. At the same time, only 240 will be available for work.
Test bench and testing
Test bench configuration:
- Chassis: Thermaltake Armor Revo
- Processor: Intel Core i7-3770k 9022 Board: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z
- Cooler: Thermaltake NiC C4
- Memory: Apacer ARMOR DDR3-2133 DIMM 8GB Kit
- Video card: AMD Radeon HD 7950 Reference
- Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 62 Microsoft 9027W
- 7 64 bit
Moving smoothly to the tests, first of all, let’s pay attention to S.
M.A.R.T. the results of speed and data reading exceed the declared ones by 70-90 MB/s. The results in CrystalDiskMark, as well as in the previous case, were a bit surprising. AS SSD Benchmark turned out to be the next in the list of tested software. It is difficult to work with incompressible data for a drive with a SandForce controller. The on and off indicators of a personal computer are also good. For comparison, we took the second drive on a SandForce controller — Kingmax SMU35 Client Pro. The test results are clear. It is easy to say that 9The 0188 Kingston SSDNow V300 did an excellent job in testing, showing high read and write speeds. Of course, with incompressible files it’s a bit difficult, but this is a well-known problem with SandForce controllers.
Conclusion
For just about anyone looking for a SandForce based SSD, the Kingston SSDNow V300 is a great buy. Although this SSD is one of the most successful options on the market today, it is far from the only one.
It was a little surprising that the company Kingston declared a read and transfer speed of 450 Mb / s, because the results shown in the tests exceeded those declared by the manufacturer by about 15%. Perhaps the manufacturer tested the drives of this line on the most ancient PCs with SATA III support, or simply treated this issue too conservatively. The only identified difficulty for the Kingston SSDNow V300 was the recording of incompressible data, but, as we already wrote, this is a common problem with SandForce. In addition to impressive results, the drive has a high-quality assembly and a good bundle, and most importantly, a competitive price, which should also be attributed to pluses. Undoubtedly, Kingston SSDNow V300 deserves a medal, but the main question is: “which one?”. In total, the drive can be rated slightly higher than “4+” or slightly lower than “5”. Perhaps a little loyal, but today this drive is worthy of gold.
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ru editorial board.
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All models of power supplies from the well-known German manufacturer be quiet!, including the System Power line, designed for users with a limited budget, have been in our editorial office. At the beginning…
Cougar VTE 600W Power Supply Review and Test
In our editorial office, several power supplies of different models manufactured by Cougar have already been tested. Not so long ago, budget representatives of the STE and STX series were considered, now it has come up …
Review of Kingston SSDNow V300 120 Gb
In our new review, we want to introduce you to a far from flagship model drive, Kingston SSDNow V300 120 Gb — affordable SSD , which can capture the market of inexpensive solid state drives.
According to Kingston , the SSDNow V300 series solid state drives are the best combination of price and performance.
And before we get into the drive, let’s take a look at the market value of SSDNow V300 . As of this writing, the Kingston SSDNow V300 120Gb is the lowest priced SATA 6Gb/s SSD, starting at just under $100.
It is worth noting that the Kingston SSDNow V300 120Gb has several configuration options, and for $100 we get the minimum package. It is in this version that we will consider the drive.
Drive Kingston SSDNow V300 in our case has a volume of 120 Gb , packed in a transparent blister. The characteristics of the device are indicated on the painted cardboard.
Behind the drive in the package itself was a frame with adhesive tape, which is needed to increase the height of Kingston SSDNow V300 from 7 mm to 9.5 mm.
Case Kingston SSDNow V300 is made of steel painted in «asphalt» color, which will protect the drive itself from shock and bending.
The metal case not only provides protection against mechanical damage, but also acts as a passive heatsink that dissipates heat from the drive chips, resulting in longer component life.
Consider the element base Kingston V300 . As you can see, all chips are labeled Kingston. If we take a closer look at the controller, then under the logo Kingston you can see the line SandForce . Like most SSDs available in the consumer market, the SSDNowV300 uses the LSI SandForce SF-2281 controller.
This Kingston drive uses 16 Toggle Mode MLCNAND memory chips, which are manufactured by Toshiba using a 19nm process.
Testing
Before we start testing, let’s take a look at the official specifications of SSDNow v300 , which are available on the company’s website Kingston .
The specifications of the Kingston SSDNow v300 120gb drive are simply pleasing to the eye: a budget drive costs much less than top-end solutions, and in terms of declared speed it is not so much inferior.
The drive was tested on the following configuration:
Processor: Intel Core i7 4770k
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Formula
RAM: 2 x 2Gb Kingston HyperX DDR3 2000
Operating system: Windows 7 x86 SP1
Test results
ATTO Disk Benchmark
According to ATOO, the drive exceeds the declared characteristics. The read and write speeds are 541/517.8 respectively.
The next benchmark will be HDD pro version 5.50
Linear reading result: average speed is 355.7Mb/s, maximum is 369.8Mb/s.
Line recording result: average speed is 331.1Mb/s, maximum speed is 362.7Mb/s.
Random Read Test: Claimed speed of 450Mb/s is demonstrated when transferring 1Mb files.
Random write test: shows a speed higher than declared and is 473MB/s with a file length of 1MB.
In the File Benchmark test, the Kingston SSDNow V300 120Gb performs excellently. The sequential read speed is 462.1 Mb/s, and the write speed is 471.3 Mb/s.
The next test is CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3
The CrystalDiskMark averages sequential read speeds of 433.6 MB/s and sequential write speeds of 170.9 MB/s.
Ends our benchmark 9 testing0188 AS SSD Benchmark .
Kingston SSDNow V300 120Gb gets 539 benchmark points. The read and write speeds are 451.68Mb/s and 161.37 Mb/s, respectively.
What can be said at the end of the review Kingston SSDNow V300 120Gb ? Buying a relatively inexpensive SSD ($100), we get a product of good quality and faster than most SandForce-based drives.