Introduction:
Solid State Drives (SSD) have been very popular with enthusiasts since their introduction into the market. They offer amazing load times over standard hard drives, consume less power, have a lower failure rate, and generate less heat. All of these have made the SSD seem to be a much better option than a standard hard disk drive. The set back is the price. A SSD could cost you hundreds of dollars over a standard hard disk drive, thus leaving the SSD in the enthusiast market and out of the hands of the average user. Kingston is looking to change that with the with the V-Series SSD line. The V-Series, or value series, is a low cost SSD option for the average user.
Today we are going to be looking at Kinston SSDNow V-Series 40GB Desktop Upgrade Kit. The SSDNow V-Series comes in two options, a 40GB stand-alone SSD and a 40GB Desktop Upgrade Kit. The SSDNow kit is designed to be an easy upgrade path for anyone looking to get more performance out of their current system, without breaking the bank. The SSDNow upgrade kit is not just a SSD that you throw into your system and install a fresh copy of Windows on, it actually works along with your current hard drive by cloning your existing operating system over to the SSD and keeping all of your documents, such as music, pictures, and movies on your existing hard drive. This means this drive should not be thought of as a storage device, but as a performance upgrade. Kingston includes all the software you will need in the kit to clone your copy of Windows over to the new SSD. This will give the user an instant shot of performance and comes in roughly at the same price as upgrading your memory. Add to this Kingston’s 24/7 Tech support, a three year warranty, and a promotional launch price of $84.99 after rebates at Newegg.com and Kingston might have a real winner on their hands.
The drive comes in a protective antistatic bag that will prevent any electostatic damage before installation of the drive. On the back, there is a warning sticker that also works as the security seal for the anti-static bag
The installation disk works as both the manual and the boot disk for Acronis True Image, which is the software you will need to use while you are cloning your existing hard drive. It would of been nice to get a a hard copy of the manual as well; this would have made it easier for users with questions while using Acronis.
Testing:
Now that we have taken a look at the Kingston SSDNow V Series SSD, we can get to the fun part: benchmarking. During the benchmarks, I will be running the Kingston SSD as my main boot drive and will be running a series of benchmarking programs that will give us a good idea of how the Kingston V Series SSD will perform. I will be comparing the drive against standard hard disk drives, allowing us to get a good idea of how this drive will perform compared to the hard drive that is already installed in your system.
Testing Setup:
•CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955
•
Motherboard: Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4H
•Memory: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600
•Video Card(s): Nvidia GTX 260-216
•
Power Supply: Zalman 750W modular power supply
•Hard Drive: Kingston SSDNOW V Series 40GB SSD
•
Optical Drive: Asus DVD-R
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OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1
Comparison Modules:
•Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500B SATA 2.5" Hard drive
•
Fujitsu MHZ2320BH 320GB 5400RPM 2.5" Hard Drive
•
Seagate 750GB 7200RPM 3.5" Hard Drive
Benchmarks:
•Drive Tests:
1.HDTune 3.50 Pro
2.HD Tach
3.SiSoft Sandra 2009
4.Crystal Disk Mark
5.ATTO Disk Benchmark
6.AS SSD
7.PCMark Vantage
Testing:
HD Tune 2.55 measures disk performance to make comparisons between drives or disk controllers.
Testing:
HD Tach v3.0.4.0: HD Tach is another hard drive benchmark utility, much like HD Tune is. This benchmark will measure the average read speed, the random access time, and the amount of the CPU used during operation.
•Quick Test 8MB Zones
Testing:
Crystal Disk Mark 2.2: Crystal Disk Mark is a hard drive benchmark designed to measure the read and write speeds for the drives in in 4k blocks, 512k blocks, and sequential data.
Testing:
Atto Disk Benchmark v2.34: Atto Disk Benchmark is another old, but good, hard drive benchmark utility designed to test read and write speeds for different file sizes.
Testing:
AS SSD v1.1.3466.29641: AS SSD is a benchmark designed for the speeds of Solid State Drives; however, it will work for traditional hard drives as well. It is designed to measure the read and write speeds, and access time for set block sizes. It also assigns a score to the read, write, and overall performance of the drive.
Testing:
PCMark Vantage: With this benchmark, I will be running the system suite, as well as the hard drive test suite. The measurement for the system suite will be the total score. The measurement for hard drive performance is the total memory score as well as a break down on the hard drive tests.
Conclusion:
The Kingston SSDNow V-Series SSD does exactly what it set out to do. It offers great performance, an easy upgrade path, and comes in at a great price. While the upgrade might not be as easy as adding a new stick of memory to your system, most users will not have too much difficulty in achieving the proper results. Once I had the drive set up in my system, the difference over my hard disk drive was very noticeable. My operating system and applications loaded faster, and large photo editing was much smoother. The SSDNow drive's results stayed consistent across most of the benchmarks I ran, which put the performance way beyond that of the hard disk drives I compared it to. The larger write times were not quite as fast as the hard disk drives though, but they were also not too bad for a SSD that comes in just over the $100 mark. Along with the top notch performance, you will also be getting Kingston’s 24/7 tech support and a three year warranty. All of these will make this drive very appealing, and with the price coming in at $130 dollars, or under if you purchase with the promotional Newegg.com launch deal, make it a real steal. The only real con I could find was that the manual only comes as a PDF on the disk and not as a pamphlet. This would be fine except if you are a user that is new to the software - you might find it troublesome to not the have the directions right in front of you.
After spending some time with the Kingston SSDNow V-Series, I would highly recommend it to any user looking for the extra boost in performance that only a SSD can bring.
Pros:
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Easy upgrade path
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Great performance over HDD
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Price
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Three year warranty
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24/7 Tech support
Cons:
•
Manual comes as PDF on disk
source:overclockersclubreview date:10.26.2009W7 W8
W7 W8
I put very little importance behind all of these Benchmark Tests, and think they are a waste of server space. However if just 1 member likes them and finds them informative then it is worth while to post them. My benchmark test is how well it performs for me or my clients, which is the real world benchmark...RIGHT?
