Kingston’s HyperX and VNow 200 SSDs turn up the heat on the Hard Disk Drive
As with our previous SSD evaluations, this is not going to be the usual Solid-State Drive (SSD) review touting the theoretical advantages of the SSD over the mechanical Hard Drive (HDD). Instead, our evaluation is going to focus on Kingston’s SSDNow V200 and HyperX SSDs. Over two years ago we concluded that Kingston was making performance progress with their SSD lineup and in each follow-up review since then, we found performance increases.
This is ABT’s fifth SSD evaluation and we are now going to look at the performance differences within the Kingston SSD lineup. Our test bed uses Ivy Bridge, Intel’s latest consumer and enthusiast platform. We are using our Core i7-3770K and GTX 670 at stock settings on a EVGA Z77 FTW USB 3.0/PCIe 3.0 to again test the differenced between 3 performance grades of Kingston SSDs versus our Seagate Barracuda HDD.
Kingston offers two basic consumer lines – their Kingston HyperX SSD for the enthusiast who wants extreme performance, and their VNow lineup which further subdivides into 3 lines. We will be looking at the Consumer SSDNow V drives and evaluating the 128GB version of VNow 200 (SV200S37A/128G).
We also will be comparing two of Kingston’s Enthusiast SSDs from their HyperX lineup, the HyperX 3K SSD (left) and the HyperX SSD (below right). 
All three of these drives differ from each other in price and in capabilities – you will pay approximately $200 to $400 for 240GB to 256GB Kingston drive. The stand-alone version of the Kingston Vnow 200 128GB SSD (SV200S37A/128G) as we received it from Kingston, can be found at Amazon for $94.75, and the 256GB version is $210.25. We received complete desktop upgrade kits of the 240GB HyperX SSDs from Kingston, however. Here are the contents of a HyperX Kingston upgrade kit, pictured below:
Moving up in performance over the SSDnow V200 series, the 240 GB HyperX 3K SSD costs $174.64 at Amazon. The 240GB HyperX SSD is Kingston’s fastest SSD and it costs $412.20 at Amazon. Both of these HyperX SSDs include Kington’s “upgrade kit” which include Acronis cloning, backup and imaging software as well as hardware to make migrating to SSD from a hard disk drive, painless. Stand alone versions of Kingston SSDs generally cost about $10 less than the upgrade kit at retail.
Kingston SSDs feature an independent garbage collection function that maintains a system at optimum performance level. This is especially important for systems running on Windows XP or other OSes which doesn’t feature TRIM, and it will also help organizations extend the software cycle on their systems, delaying upgrades of operating systems and compatible applications.
Let’s take a quick overview of each drive. The features and benefits of the SSDNow series extend to all Kingston SSDs. Two other benefits should be noted especially for notebooks – power savings and durability. A SSD uses significantly less battery power than a HDD and is also less prone to failure from dropping it.
Kington’s SSDNow V200
From Kingston’s site:
Kingston’s SSDNow V200 lets you stretch your system without stretching your budget. Designed for notebook and desktop hard drive replacements and upgrades, it maximizes your computer investment while boosting the performance of the system and its applications. It’s available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacity kits that make switching to an SSD easy and affordable. Kits include cables, brackets, cloning software and HDD enclosure and installation video everything needed to get started.
SSDNow V200 makes computers more responsive than ever. Boot up is quicker and applications load faster than ever before. More reliable and more durable than a traditional hard drive, V200 is backed by a three-year warranty and legendary Kingston® reliability.
Kingston SSDNow V200 128GB Features and Specifications:
F E AT U R E S / B E N E F I T S
- Faster — boots system and applications faster
- Reliable — with no moving parts, solid-state drives are less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
- Convenient — all-in-one kits with all the components for easy installation
- Multiple capacities — to fit your needs
- Form Factor — 2.5-inch drive available in both 7.0mm (64GB & 128GB only) & 9.5mm (256GB) to fit more system
- Silent — runs silent and cool
S P E C I F I C AT I O N S
Form factor 2.5″
Interface
SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0
Capacities
64GB, 128GB, 256GB
Sequential Reads
- 64GB — 260MB/s
- 128GB — 300MB/s
- 256GB — 300MB/s
Sequential Writes
- 64GB —100MB/s
- 128GB — 190MB/s
- 256GB — 230MB/s
Sustained Random 4k Read/Write
- 64GB — up to 39K/ up to 3.3k IOPS
- 128GB — up to 38K/ up to 5.5K IOPS
- 256GB — up to 32K/ up to 4K IOPS
Power Consumption 2.0 W (TYP) Idle / 4.8 W (TYP) Write
Storage temperatures -40°C ~ 85°C
Operating temperatures 0°C ~ 70°C
Dimensions
- 64 and 128GB — 69.8mm x 100.1mm x 7mm
- 256GB — 69.8mm x 100.1mm x 9.5mm
Weight
-
64GB & 128GB — 88g
- 256GB — 105.2g
Vibration operating 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)
Vibration non-operating 20G Peak (10–2000Hz)
Life expectancy 1 million hours MTBF
Warranty/support three-year warranty with free technical support
The 128GB SSDNow V200 is a 100% Kingston-branded solid-state drive which uses a Toshiba-branded JMicron JMF66 controller which supports the SATA 6.0GB/s specification. The VNow 200 uses eight 16GB Toshiba’s 32nm MLC NAND modules. However, instead of concentrating on the technical, we are going to be looking at the advantages that a PC gamer might have using a SSD over a fast mechanical hard drive. And of course, we will compare the Kingston consumer VNow line with the more expensive HyperX 3K and HyperX SSDs.
Next, let’s look at Kingston’s less expensive entry in their enthusiast Class SSD – the HyperX 3K.
Kingston’s HyperX 3K SSD
From Kingston’s site:
Budget-minded gamers and enthusiasts will benefit from the lower price of Kingston’s new HyperX® 3K SSD. This solid-state drive combines premium 3000 program-erase cycle synchronous NAND with the second generation SandForce® controller. Its lower price means more users can experience ultraresponsive gaming, multitasking and multimedia computing power.
3K loads games and applications faster, increases frames per second (FPS) for an improved gaming experience and allows for quick transfers and edits of large media files.
HyperX 3K provides high-speed SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) performance and blazing fast random and sequential read/write speeds. SandForce DuraClass™ technology provides the latest data integrity protection for ultimate endurance over the entire life of the drive.
HyperX 3K SSD comes in a sleek, black and aluminum case design, accentuating the look of any power user’s system. For added peace of mind, HyperX 3K SSD is backed by a three-year warranty and legendary Kingston® reliability.
FEATURES / SPEC I F I C AT I O N S
Form factor 2.5″
Controller SandForce® SF-2281
Components MLC NAND (3k P/E Cycles)
Interface SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s), SATA Rev 2.0 (3Gb/s)
Capacities 90GB, 120GB, 240GB, 480GB
Sequential reads
- 90GB / 120GB / 240GB – 555MB/s
- 480GB – 540MB/s
Sequential writes
- 90GB / 120GB / 240GB – 510MB/s
- 480GB – 450MB/s
Sustained Random 4K R/W4
- 90GB – 20,000/50,000 IOPS
- 120GB – 20,000/60,000 IOPS
- 240GB – 40,000/57,000 IOPS
- 480GB – 60,000/45,000 IOPS
Max Random 4K R/W4
- 90GB – 85,000/74,000 IOPS
- 120GB – 85,000/73,000 IOPS
- 240GB – 86,000/60,000 IOPS
- 480GB – 75,000/48,000 IOPS
PCMARK® Vantage HDD Suite Score
- 90GB / 120GB / 240GB / 480GB: 60,000
Supports S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, and Garbage Collection
Power Consumption
- 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.58 W (TYP) Read / 2.11 W (TYP) Write
Dimensions 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm
Weight 97g
Operating temperatures 0°C ~ 70°C
Storage temperatures -40°C ~ 85°C
Shock Resistance 1500G
Vibration operating 2.17G
Vibration non-operating 20G
MTBF 1,000,000 Hrs
Kingston’s HyperX SSD
From Kingston’s site:
Kingston’s HyperX® SSD combines the latest SandForce® controller technology with premium NAND Flash, reducing load times while increasing performance and endurance. It provides high-speed SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s) transfer speeds for larger bandwidth, which power users require for advanced gaming, multitasking and multimedia computing power. Kingston’s HyperX SSD lets users load games and applications faster, increase frames per second (FPS) and quickly transfer and edit large media files. It’s cool, silent and requires less power with no additional cooling requirements. When configuring the HyperX SSD partition, the user can choose between having the maximum available capacity for data storage, or give up a little space to increase performance and endurance. This additional space is called over provisioning on an SSD. The amount of performance and endurance increase depends upon the type of data being stored on the HyperX SSD. The more data that is MPEG, JPG, ZIP, ARC, file types, the greater the benefit for this increased over provisioning. HyperX SSD uses an advanced wear leveling technology that distributes writes evenly across all the Flash blocks in the SSD to maximize overall drive endurance. Additionally, this ensures that the individual Flash memory blocks are consumed at a very balanced rate, not to exceed a 2% difference between the most often written blocks and least written. This enables the HyperX SSD to provide the longest possible life for the user while maintaining optimal performance.
HyperX SSD is also covered by a three-year warranty and legendary Kingston® reliability.
F EATURES / SPEC I F I C AT I O N S
Form factor 2.5″
Controller SandForce® SF-2281
Components Intel® 25nm Compute Quality MLC NAND
(5k P/E Cycles)
Interface SATA Rev 3.0 (6Gb/s), SATA Rev 2.0 (3Gb/s)
Capacities 120GB, 240GB, 480GB
Sequential reads
- 6Gb/s3 120GB / 240GB – 555MB/s
- 480GB – 540MB/s
Sequential writes
- 6Gb/s3 120GB / 240GB – 510MB/s
- 480GB – 450MB/s
Sustained Random 4K R/W4
- 120GB – 20,000/60,000 IOPS
- 240GB – 40,000/57,000 IOPS
- 480GB – 60,000/45,000 IOPS
Max Random 4K R/W4
- 120GB – 87,000/70,000 IOPS
- 240GB – 87,000/58,000 IOPS
- 480GB – 75,000/47,000 IOPS
PCMARK® Vantage HDD Suite Score
- 120GB / 240GB / 480GB: 58,000
Supports S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, and Garbage Collection
Power Consumption
- 120GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.6 W (TYP) Read / 2.0 W (TYP) Write
- 240GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.5 W (TYP) Read / 2.05 W (TYP) Write
- 480GB: 0.455 W (TYP) Idle / 1.5 W (TYP) Read / 1.65 W (TYP) Write
Dimensions 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm
Weight 97g
Operating temperatures 0°C ~ 70°C
Storage temperatures -40°C ~ 85°C
Shock Resistance 1500G
Vibration operating 2.17G
Vibration non-operating 20G
MTBF 1,000,000 Hrs
Differences between the HyperX SSD and the HyperX 3K SSD
The specifications of the HyperX SSD and the HyperX 3K SSD differ mostly in the number of program/erase (P/E) cycles the NAND inside the SSD is rated for. Programming a NAND cell is destructive to the cell itself and over many cycles it will no longer hold data. Intel’s 25nm MLC NAND is binned and rated for either 3,000 or 5,000 program/erase cycles. As an example, power user might use up a single program/erase cycle as a daily average of writing up to 50GB of data which means approximately 3,000-5,000 days of useful life – the difference between just over 8 years and nearly 14 years of use between the two drives.
The standard HyperX blue SSD ships with 5K 25nm Intel MLC NAND, while the HyperX 3K ships with the less expensive 3K variety. Most competing drives also use the 3K NAND with the 5K variety used for premium SSDs. Because the price difference between the two HyperX SSDs are so extreme, we will test to see how the 3K NAND SSD performs compared to the 5K version. Both SSDs are warrantied for 3 years and both should last for at least twice that time even under heavy usage.
In every repect both the HyperX SSD and the HyperX 3K SSD are identical except for the rated life of the NAND. The exterior is identical except for the color – the standard HyperX is accented blue while the 3K is black. And the interior and the firmware are the same. Even the bundles are identical right down to the multi-bit screwdriver and Acronis Cloning software.
SSD vs. HDD
Our evaluations of SSDs vs HDDs are ongoing and we even performed a complete notebook “makeover” as we dumped our slow 5400 rpm HDD for a speedy Kingston Vnow series SSD and upgraded our system memory from 2GB to 4GB with fast Kingston notebook memory. This simple upgrade together with an OS reinstall, speeded up our system enough for us to keep on using the notebook to this day!
Of course, we shall briefly rerun many our earlier synthetic and real world testing to see if we can notice the performance difference between the drives. To properly bring you this review, we used the same two Seagate 500GB 7200.12 HDDs that we purchased from Buy.com for $40 each at the beginning of last year. We payed $80 total costs for 1TB of total storage in two separate mechanical HDDs! Compare this to our 128GB Kingston SSDNow v200 which now retails for $99.99 and we would still have to say, the SSD had better be much faster.
We have also noticed that SSD pricing were dropping very slowly until the floods in Thailand last year which affected adversely HDD production worldwide. Hard Disk Drive prices shot up substantially and SSDs partially filled the void. Competition brought SSD pricing down and in many cases, at or below the $1-per-gigabyte storage costs that have long been considered breakthrough low SSD pricing. It was expected to take a couple of years but SSDs are now regularly offered at or below this price point.
From past testing, we concluded that a SSD certainly did make our PC noticeably much faster – especially for loading and shutting down Windows and for launching applications. We also concluded that if you are a gamer, you can still be served well by a fast mechanical hard disk drive if storage and expense is an issue. Evaluating the Kingston SSD from a gamer’s perspective means finding the practical advantages of the SSD over the HDD, and we have had more than three months of daily comparing all three SSD’s performance with each other and with our mechanical drives.
Because a Solid-State Drive’s performance tends to degrade over time, many reviews are carried out with the SSD in a completely brand new state each time every single benchmark test is run. That means the SSD is secure-erased after each test is run. To be fair, we made sure to start out with our SSD drives brand new, and then we used our drives in normal day-to-day usage and tested them against each other for the benchmarks that you will see after they had been used for weeks. Read on as we share our continued journey into the further practical advantages of the SSD over the HDD from a gamer’s perspective.
The SSDNow V200 is targeted as an upgrade path for mainstream consumers including gamers as a cost-effective performance upgrade option in upgrading a desktop or notebook. The original Kingston Now V-series 128GB SSD that we reviewed two years ago had a good price to performance ratio. With an updated controller and 32nm NAND, read and write performance has markedly increased from the previous-generation Kingston SSDNow V100 Series SSD to the ‘+’ series and again we have a boost in read performance with the latest Kingston drives.
Two years ago, the older SSDNow V-series drive was capable of up to 200MB/sec. read; 160MB/sec. write whereas the next generation could manage up to 250MB/sec. read; 230MB/sec. write; a solid improvement for the same list price. And now we have the latest SSDNow V200 series (not ‘+’) to evaluate which shows itself to be overall faster with a read speed of 300MB/sec but a slower write speed of 190MB/second.
The Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
HDD pricing has somewhat recovered a year after the floods in Thailand which halted much of the word production and supplies are no longer constrained. HDDs also tend to improve performance incrementally and the newer drive’s cases are also thinner compared with the drives from just two years ago. The newer Seagate Barracuda HDDs are quieter and faster than the older series although the rotation speed remains the same at 7200 rpm.
Mechanical HDDs have become much cheaper again since the flood, and a 3TB drive may now be purchased for about the same costs as a 250GB drive just three years ago! How does a Solid-State Drive stack up in terms of price/performance to these mechanical drives in a practical way for gamers?
Differences between the bundle and stand alone units
The HyperX Series bundle is a bit different than the Vnow Series bundle; last time Kingston sent ABT the 128GB SSDNow V100 desktop kit which was bundled a bit differently then the 128GB SSDNow V100 notebook kit, and now we are evaluating the HyperX upgrade kits (as now differentiated from the SSDNow V200 “Stand alone” drive).
With the bundle, Kingston includes the SATA and power cables for the end user along with the cloning software so we also have the option of making the SSD the C drive and putting the bulk of the data on a mechanical storage drive. The Kingston 128GB Vnow SSD arrives in a blister pack.
In one scenario, the SSD becomes a boot drive for the PC and it is an option that can work well. If we have a notebook HDD (or another SSD), we can use it as storage inside the USB 2.0 case that Kingston provides in the upgrade kit. So you basically get both the notebook kit and the desktop kit in one great bundle. The only reason we can think of getting the stand alone drive, is if you already have a upgrade kit and don’t need the hardware or software included in a duplicate bundle.
Setting up a SSD and a HDD together is beyond the scope of this article, but you will be able to access anything on the SSD lightning-fast to take advantage of your favorite applications and games and still use the mechanical drive seamlessly, just as it would be without the SSD as boot drive. Not all SSDs have great read and write times, so not every program will benefit from being on a SSD, but all will benefit from the lightning-fast response from the seek times that a SSD enjoys over the HDD.
To to do a notebook upgrade one would use the 2.5″ enclosure and the SSD and cloning software. In that case, we would install the SSD into the notebook, plug the old 5400 rpm HDD into the supplied USB 2.0 enclosure, pop in the disc and clone the HDD onto the SSD. When finished, the old notebook HDD will now become an external hard drive to give more storage. Or one can remove the notebook’s optical drive and use the SSD together with the old HDD inside of the notebook. If you choose to do a desktop upgrade, you can use the SATA cable and the rails instead from the same kit.
Let’s open the box.
