{"id":23232,"date":"2011-02-16T04:50:37","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T04:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=23232"},"modified":"2011-02-18T14:07:58","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T14:07:58","slug":"a-gamers-perspective-of-kingstons-128-gb-ssd-vnow-series-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/a-gamers-perspective-of-kingstons-128-gb-ssd-vnow-series-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gamer\u2019s perspective of Kingston\u2019s 128 GB SSDNow V100 series \u2013 revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

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).\u00a0 This has been done over-and-over in many reviews and a particularly excellent evaluation was done by our own MrK on the earlier version of the same SSD that we are evaluating today – Kingston’s improved 128GB SSDNow<\/em> V100<\/strong> SSD.<\/p>\n

The SSDNow<\/em> V100 is a 100% Kingston-branded solid-state drive using the same JMicron 618 controller as the previous SSDNow <\/em>V Series drive. The new V100 uses Toshiba\u2019s new 32nm NAND, therefore it has received a firmware upgrade plus performance enhancements in order to be optimized for the 32nm die shrink.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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Of course, we shall briefly rerun some of Karan’s synthetic and real world testing to see if we can see the performance improvements that Kingston promised over the older version, last year.\u00a0 To properly bring you this review, we purchased two Seagate 500GB 7200.12 HDDs from Buy.com for $40 each, shipped; $80 total costs for 1TB of total storage in two separate mechanical HDDs!\u00a0 Compare this to our 128GB Kingston SSDNow<\/em> v100 which retails for $234.99 and we would have to say, the SSD had better be much faster.<\/p>\n

We have also noticed that pricing on SSDs have been dropping and currently this same SSD has been on sale at NewEgg<\/a> this week for $194.99 and there is a further $75 mail in rebate which brings the price down to $119 which is finally below the $1-per-gigabyte storage costs that have long been considered breakthrough low-pricing.<\/p>\n

Evaluating the Kingston SSD from a gamer’s perspective means finding the practical advantages of the SSD over the HDD, including more than three months of daily using it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That means the SSD is erased after each test is run.\u00a0 How fair is that?\u00a0 We made sure to start out with all of our 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.\u00a0 Read on as we share our three-month journey into the practical advantages of the SSD over the HDD from a gamer’s perspective.<\/p>\n

The SSDNow<\/em> V100 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 older KingstonNow <\/em>V-series 128GB SSD that MrK reviewed last year 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<\/em> V Series SSD.\u00a0 The older drive was capable of up to 200MB\/sec. read; 160MB\/sec. write whereas the new one can manage up to 250MB\/sec. read; 230MB\/sec. write; a solid improvement for the same list price<\/p>\n

Kingston has also introduced a 256GB capacity SSD with the SSDNow<\/em> V100, giving consumers a higher-capacity option at a good price point.\u00a0 There are two kits available.\u00a0 The SSDNow<\/em> V100 is available with the bundle upgrade kit which includes cloning software along with a 2.5″ hard drive enclosure (notebook bundle only); or 3.5″ brackets and SATA and power cables (desktop bundle only).\u00a0 We are evaluating the desktop bundle in this review.<\/p>\n

A firmware upgrade with the older SSDNow<\/em> V Series such as our MrK evaluated last year, is not possible due to a process shrink.\u00a0 MrK’s older V Series uses 43nm NAND and our new V100 SSDNow<\/em> uses 32nm NAND Flash. Any attempt to upgrade the firmware of the older drive with the new would probably end in disaster and a useless drive.\u00a0 However, the older drive is very fast and it also supports TRIM and garbage collection found in the newer series which will keep your SSD running near its optimal performance over its long lifetime.<\/p>\n

Pictured below is the Kingston SSDNow<\/em> V100 (front center) with four mechanical drives – two 250 GB 7200 RPM drives of Seagate’s tenth generation and two brand new 500 GB drives of their latest, the 12th generation.\u00a0 Notice how much thinner the newer drive’s cases (left) are compared with the drives (right)\u00a0 from two years ago.\u00a0 The new Seagate Barracuda HDDs are quieter and faster than their mechanical hard drives of just two years ago although the rotation speed remains at 7200 rpm.\u00a0 Mechanical HDDs have become much cheaper and a 1TB drive may now be purchased for about the same costs as a 250GB drive just two years ago!\u00a0 How does a Solid-State Drive stack up in terms of price\/performance to these mechanical drives in a practical way for gamers?\u00a0 The answer is forthcoming!<\/p>\n

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Here are the specifications from Kingston’s own web site that covers the entire Kingston SSDNow<\/em> V100 series.<\/p>\n

Specifications<\/h3>\n

Kingston SSDNow <\/em>V100 Features & Specifications:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n