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<\/a><\/p>\nWhen you are talking about waiting over 2-1\/2 minutes for Windows to fully load, or thirty seconds for Windows to shutdown, clearly a “makeover” was in order.\u00a0 Our 250GB 5400 rpm mechanical HDD seemed a likely bottleneck as did having only 2GB of system RAM for Vista 32-bit.\u00a0 So we got 2x2GB of PC 5300 from Kingston to replace our 2x1GB PC5300 and reused our Kingston 128GB SSD that we evaluated here<\/a> to replace the notebook’s hard disk drive.<\/p>\n Before we began any benchmarks, we upgraded the RAM from 2x1GB to 2x2GB.\u00a0 We didn’t notice a lot of difference other than we could have more applications and programs open before the hard disk was accessed and everything slowed down.\u00a0 Previously, we also used a fast 4GB flash drive as a Ready Boost and it is unnecessary now for day to day use.<\/p>\n As you can see in the image below, it is (generally) a simple matter to replace system memory and a notebook’s hard disk drive.\u00a0 As you can see, the SSD fits perfectly in the drive bay formerly occupied by the hard disk drive and the RAM is a simple remove and replace as we\u00a0 removed the 2x1GB of Hynix RAM and replaced it with the 2x2GB Kingston modules.<\/p>\n That means we headed immediately to phase two of our plan – a clean install of Vista 32 and to completely get rid of the unnecessary programs our Compaq was pre-loaded up with from the factory.\u00a0 We realize that this is something that we should have done a long time ago.<\/p>\n As with our last two 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).\u00a0 In fact, we are using the same 128GB\u00a0 SSD from the review<\/a> of the 128GB\u00a0 SSDNow<\/em> V100 Series.\u00a0 In both of our two previous reviews of SSD vs HDD, we concluded that Kingston was making performance progress with their SSD lineup.<\/p>\n We also toured the Kingston Fountain Valley California headquarters factory<\/a> this Spring and we watched RAM modules and flash drives being made.\u00a0 We also reviewed the 96GB Kingston VNow+ Series SSD this month here<\/a>.\u00a0 And now we are looking for a practical usage to replace our notebook’s mechanical hard disk with a Solid State Drive and we will give you the benchmarks and our impressions.<\/p>\n From past testing, we concluded that a SSD certainly did make our desktop PC noticeably much faster – especially for loading and shutting down Windows and for launching applications. However, 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 are issues\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n The SSDNow<\/em> V100 Series<\/strong><\/p>\n It is also important to check for updates as our 128GB Kingston SSDNow<\/em> V100 received a firmware update which is critical to install.\u00a0 It only takes a couple of minutes to do this and you will insure that your SSD will continue to give years of good service.<\/p>\n Important<\/span>: If you have this same 128GB SSD (including other SSDs in the SSDnow<\/em> V100 series), you will need to upgrade the firmware from Kingston’s site<\/a> to insure proper running of your drive. As always, back up your drives before doing this update.<\/strong><\/p>\n SSDNow<\/em> V100 feature an independent garbage collection function that maintains a system at optimum performance level. This is especially important for systems running on Windows XP, which doesn\u2019t feature TRIM, and it will also help organizations and users extend the software cycle on their systems, delaying upgrades of operating systems and applications.<\/p>\n SSDNow<\/em> is backed by a three-year warranty, live 24\/7 tech support and legendary Kingston reliability.<\/p>\n Features<\/strong><\/p>\n Differences between Notebook and Desktop bundle<\/strong><\/p>\n Although Kingston sent ABT the desktop 128GB SSD kit, the notebook bundle includes a 2.5″ USB 2.0 enclosure so that the old notebook HDD now becomes 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.\u00a0 In this editor’s case, there is no need for an external back-up drive as 128GB is plenty of storage.<\/p>\n Let’s open the SSD box and begin our notebook makeover.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here is the retail box that you would buy with the desktop upgrade kit.<\/p>\n Kingston calls the SSDNow<\/em> v100, “the Ultimate Upgrade!” We shall see. We also note the 24\/7 promised tech service and the 3-year warranty.<\/p>\n Here are the contents of the desktop kit; the 2.5″ SSD, the 3.5″ brackets and screws, the SATA data cable, the SATA power cable (not pictured) and the cloning software CD and the installation manual.\u00a0 The notebook kit includes the external USB 2.0 enclosure for the notebook’s original HDD as storage.<\/p>\n If you get the V+100 (plus) series (we reviewed the Kingston 96GB SSDNow V+100 series here<\/a>) or the SSDNow V100 (not “+”) notebook kit, you will get the USB 2.0 case (image below; upper right) for your 2.5″ Notebook HDD so that you can use it as a storage drive.\u00a0 We do not need ours as 128GB is plenty of storage for our notebook’s needs.<\/p>\n The Clean Install of Vista 32<\/strong><\/p>\n We set up Windows Vista 32-bit (Upgrade) on our 250GB notebook’s 5400 rpm hard drive along with two fairly new games, all of our favorite applications including Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Office and benching tools. We started with 50GB or so of data on our HDD so that we would not have any issues cloning the HDD to the SSD and while still leaving room for additional files and applications to its maximum 119GB. We used the supplied Acronis cloning software on the Kingston-supplied CD to make a exact copy of our HDD and we were able to then boot from either drive. The cloning software is by Acronis and it is very fast and very easy to use.<\/p>\n And now we see the cloned 128GB SSD:<\/p>\n The first thing that we noticed was that Windows startup time was now cut in half!\u00a0 And this was just by doing a clean install of Windows on a 5400 rpm mechanical hard drive!!\u00a0 This is probably the most cost-effective “upgrade” that anyone can do.\u00a0 However, the OEM copies that are pre-installed on notebooks and desktops are usually not eligible for clean installs; we had a spare Upgrade copy of Windows Vista 32.<\/p>\n A secure erase restores your drive to a like-new state where each cell is effectively zeroed out. So its performance would be like-new also as if it was fresh out of the box. Simply cloning over from an HDD to SSD – which is what we did – will not zero out the cells like a secure erase would. This is because you’re not guaranteed to be writing over the same cells.<\/p>\n In a clone, information is just being transferred over, not like erasing a cell first and then writing to it. On a good SSD such as Kingston’s SSDNow<\/em> v100 series, there is simply no need to secure erase periodically, but whenever you format or re-image your drive, it might be a good idea.\u00a0 However, we didn’t do this, preferring a simple reformat – we are giving you benching that is definitely real world and the SSD is given no advantage over the hard drive whatsoever.<\/p>\n If you decide to secure erase your SSD, this is perhaps the most detailed yet simplified step-by-step way to secure erase your SSD and something you must do (for security) if you ever sell it:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.markc.me.uk\/MarkC\/Blog\/Entries\/2009\/8\/13_Erasing_an_SSD.html<\/a><\/p>\n Be aware that your SSD’s BIOS may have some sort of mechanism that prevents the secure erase tool from detecting the SSD for secure erase. We had no such issues with our Kingston drive but we wish that they had included a secure erase tool with the drive.<\/p>\n We began our testing with our SSD in a used state as it had already been used and benchmarked in our desktop PC. We also began with our cleanly formatted 250GB OEM notebook HDD which is the Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook series. We installed Windows Vista 32-bit operating system and about 40 GB of programs, applications and games.\u00a0 Next, we used the Acronis Cloning software included on the included Kingston CD to effortlessly copy in just a few minutes the entire Hard disk drive image to the Kingston SSD which now became a bootable drive.<\/p>\n Although we have evaluation copies of the SW we tested, we used the freeware or shareware version if there was a choice. There are some remarkable shareware and freeware tools available for testing hard disk and solid-state drive performance and all of the ones that we use are considered excellent.<\/p>\n About Kingston Digital, Inc.<\/strong><\/p>\n Kingston Digital, Inc. (\u201cKDI\u201d) is the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the world\u2019s largest independent manufacturer of memory products. Established in 2008, KDI is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, USA. For more information, please visit www.kingston.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Test Configuration – Hardware <\/strong><\/p>\n Test Configuration – Software<\/strong><\/p>\n Let’s head for the tests and we shall start with the synthetics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crystal DiskMark version 3.0 is an excellent way to test your motherboard\/HD’s performance. CrystalDiskMark is primarily a HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to measure sequential data and random read\/write speeds in 4k blocks and 512k blocks.<\/p>\n Here are two key features of \u201cCrystalDiskMark\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00b7 Sequential reads\/writes<\/p>\n \u00b7 Random 4KB\/512KB reads\/writes<\/p>\n First we test with our 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook mechanical hard drive.<\/p>\n HD Tach v3.0.4.0 is a hard drive benchmark utility which will measure the average read speed, the random access time, and the CPU utilization.<\/p>\n First we look at the sequential read speed of the SSD which is graphed along with the random access time and CPU utilization.<\/p>\n Everest is a complete benchmarking\/stress test for your PC and it has been renamed to AIDA64. Everest as a name is dead, but its lead developer, Tamas Mikl\u00f3s the developer of Everest, AIDA16 and AIDA32, has a new company called FinalWire, based in Hungary. Like Everest, AIDA64 is an overall PC diagnostics tool and it look and functions much the same.<\/p>\n Just a part of AIDA64 Benchmark will measure the raw performance of:<\/p>\n However, the most important difference in drives that AIDA64 will measure is the Disk Benchmark. First we look at our 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook and notice that it is quite slow, even for a mechanical drive.<\/p>\n Now we look at the Kingston SSD.<\/p>\n We can generally see big improvements in the AIDA64 benches of the SSD over the HDD with a small penalty of a higher CPU usage. Of course, we wonder how this translates to real world performance. Bear with us awhile longer as we attempt to relate real world to synthetic performance.<\/p>\n HD Tune<\/strong> is a hard disk utility. We are using the default setting of 64KB blocks for testing. First we run the standard benchmark with the 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook drive.<\/p>\n ASSD is designed primarily for Solid-State Drives. There are four synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD and are carried out without use of the operating system caches. In Seq-test the program measures how long it takes to read and write a 1 GB file respectively. In the 4K test the read and write performance for random 4K blocks is determined. The 4K-64-thrd test corresponds to the 4K procedure except that the read and write operations on 64 threads are distributed as with the usual start of a program.<\/p>\n In the copying test following folders are created: ISO (two large files), programs (typical program folder with many small files) and games (folder of a game with small and large files). These three folders are copied with a simple copy command of the operating system. The cache is turned on for this test. The practice tests show the performance of the SSD with simultaneous read and write operations.<\/p>\n The ATTO Disk Benchmark is an aging performance measurement tool which measures storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize the performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I\/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously.<\/p>\n PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista and 7 that offers one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts. A PCMark Vantage score is a rough measure of your computer\u2019s performance across a variety of common tasks. The measurement for the PCMark Vantage hard drive suite is the total score with the scoring for each test further broken down. There are a total of eight hard drive tests within PCMark Vantage and all eight are run to measure the relative performance of the SSD vs the HDD we tested.<\/p>\n The HDD Test suite in PCMark Vantage consists of the following 8 tests:<\/p>\n First we run the standard PCMark Vantage benchmark suite using our 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook hard drive.<\/p>\n Now we run the same benchmark suite with our Kingston SSDNow<\/em> V100.<\/p>\n SANDRA, short for the S<\/strong>ystem AN<\/strong>alyser, D<\/strong>iagnostic and R<\/strong>eporting A<\/strong>ssistant is an information and diagnostic utility. It provides a tremendous amount of information about every hardware and software component in your PC. It also provides various benchmarks including for measuring and reporting disk performance. SANDRA 2011<\/a> Service Pack 1 is already out and although we used the Lite version which is free for evaluation, the complete version is currently $49.99 for an incredibly useful suite which we also use regularly as a diagnostic utility.<\/p>\n First we run the drive comparison for our 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook HDD:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CustomPC benchmark use widely available open-source applications to carry out the tasks that most of us perform on a regular basis. There are three tests, each of which measure different aspects of a PC\u2019s performance. These tests themselves are not synthetic benchmarks but instead they use real world image, video and multi-tasking tasks to test the performance of your computer. We are looking to see if tasks are faster on the SSD than the HDD.<\/p>\n The tests are:<\/p>\n As usual we test with the 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook HDD first.<\/p>\n In this test we are using MrK’s method<\/a> of installing the<\/em> game to the drive being benchmarked. After that, the game folder is copied to another folder on the same drive using Microsoft\u2019s Robocopy GUI and the time taken is noted. This real world benchmark tests both the read and the write speeds of the drive at the same time. This time, we used H.A.W.X.<\/em> for this purpose as this game has a lot of files of various sizes. This should test the hard disk transfer speeds across vast sizes of files and is indeed a real world scenario.<\/p>\n The 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook HDD took 6 minutes and 47 seconds<\/strong> on average to copy 5.61GB.<\/p>\n We have already seen very slight improvements in video editing when the drives are accessed and huge gains in copying big files, but will it also translate to improved performance in gaming? We will look at gaming and application load times now that we are finished with the synthetic and real world benchmarks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Solid-state drives won\u2019t increase game framerates but they can certainly reduce game startup times and save\/load times. This means less time waiting for the game to load and more time playing the game. This is an issue of “immersion”. If it takes a long time to load a level or an autosave, it may cause irritation, and getting back quickly into the game after your character dies is important for staying immersed in any game.<\/p>\n We were surprised that H.A.W.X.<\/em> runs at all on our notebook’s GeForce 8200M.\u00a0 Running at our display’s native resolution of 1366×768 with all details set to “Low”, we experienced framerates in the low-20s on the DX9 pathway; using DX10 dropped framerates into the teens.\u00a0 Resident Evil 5<\/em> proved even more demanding and we had to drop our resolution to get framerates approaching playable.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>To prepare for our SSD upgrade,\u00a0 we uninstalled programs and games that we didn’t use any longer, backed up documents to an external hard drive and deleted enough data to slim down our 250GB HDD to well below 100GB.\u00a0 We then cloned our HDD contents to our SSD with the Acronis software that Kingston includes with the SSD kit and installed the SSD in place of the old drive.\u00a0 To our shock and dismay, we only shaved about 15 seconds off of our loading time and ten seconds off of our shutdown!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>The 128GB SSDNow<\/em> V100 is a 100% Kingston-branded solid-state drive using the JMicron 618 controller using Toshiba\u2019s 32nm NAND. However, instead of concentrating on the differences in a desktop PC, we are going to be looking at the advantages that a PC gamer might have using a SSD over a slow mechanical hard drive in a notebook.\u00a0 Of course, we shall briefly rerun many of our synthetic and real world tests from our previous SSD evaluations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
Kingston’s 128GB SSDNow<\/em> V100 series<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nSecure Erase and Performance Degradation<\/h3>\n
Note on testing.<\/h3>\n
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The Benchmarks<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Tests<\/h2>\n
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Synthetic Tests<\/strong><\/h1>\n
CrystalDiskMark<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Now we move on to the SSD for some amazingly fast performance!<\/p>\n<\/a>Impressive. The SSD leaves the HDD far behind in this benchmark.<\/p>\nHD TACH<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>And now the HDD’s sequential read speed test is graphed along with the random access time and CPU utilization – average read is less than 1\/4 that of the SSD:<\/p>\n<\/a>We see that CPU utilization is higher on the SSD, however, even in a used state, the SSD scores impressive numbers over the HDD in every synthetic test so far.<\/p>\nAIDA64 (Everest)<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nHD Tune 4.60<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Now we run Read benchmark for the SSD.<\/p>\n<\/a>Here is the extra file benchmark test for the HDD:<\/p>\n<\/a>And now the extra file benchmark for the SSD:<\/p>\n<\/a>Again, there is absolutely no comparison in the synthetic tests. The SSD is a magnitude faster than the mechanical HDD.<\/p>\nASSD<\/h2>\n
<\/a>And now it is the SSD’s turn.<\/p>\n<\/a>Again. there is absolutely no comparison – just contrast, as the SSD’s performance figures are impressive compared to the slow 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook HDD.<\/p>\nATTO<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/a>And now we run ATTO Disk benchmark on our SSD:<\/p>\n<\/a>It doesn’t really prove anything, but synthetic benchmarks are definitely faster on the SSD vs the HDD; and much more so when contrasted with the 250GB Toshiba 5400 rpm notebook’s drive .<\/p>\nPCMark Vantage<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>In all cases, the SSD is faster with PCMark Vantage.<\/p>\nSANDRA 2010 SP1<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Now we test with the Kingston SSDNow<\/em> v100 and watch our performance skyrocket.<\/p>\n<\/a>As usual, the SSD is significantly faster that the HDD for synthetic benchmarking. Let’s head for real world testing.<\/p>\nReal World Testing<\/h2>\n
CustomPC Benchmark<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Now the same test is repeated on the SSD.<\/p>\n<\/a>The SSD has about 1% more CPU usage than the mechanical HDD for each of the three tests.\u00a0 Image editing is 2 seconds faster on the mechanical HDD and ten seconds faster on multi-tasking where most of the time is spent waiting on the CPU.\u00a0 However we see a 41 second improvement using the SSD for video encoding. Now we will go to a very practical test of something we all do, file copying.<\/p>\nFile Copy: H.A.W.X.<\/em><\/h3>\n
<\/a>The SDD took 2 minutes and 54 seconds<\/strong> on average to copy that same 5.61GB.<\/p>\n<\/a>Need we say more? We are saving nearly four (4) minutes!\u00a0 It takes nearly seven minutes for the HDD to copy the same files that the SSD does in less than three!!<\/p>\nApplication\/Gaming Load times<\/strong> and Windows Startup & Shutdown<\/h2>\n
<\/a>In the following chart we test both of our games at 1366×768 or at 800×600 with lowest details and with AA\/AF disabled . H.A.W.X. <\/em>measures the time it takes to load the in-game benchmark as it is very repeatable and consistent. Similarly, Resident Evil 5<\/em> is tested by measuring the time it takes to launch its benchmarks.\u00a0 We also compare loading times for Microsoft Office 2007 Word and Excel to load blank documents.\u00a0 Photoshop Elements 7 loading time is measured from launching ‘edit’ to its setup.<\/p>\n