Kingston SSDNow V300 (120GB & 240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on April 30, 2013 12:30 PM ESTFinal Words
I have one issue with the V300: There's nothing particular in it that would differentiate it from the other SandForce based SSDs. While Kingston said they did lots of customization and worked closely with SandForce/LSI, at least in our testing there aren't any striking differences. It's possible that the tweaks Kingston applied are at a such low level that they won't really impact the end-user experience but that raises a question if the tweaks are needed at all as you'll get the same performance with the stock firmware. Kingston may of course be using slower or lower endurance NAND that required customization but as it stands, this is all just speculation. I'm still a bit disappointed that Kingston couldn't give us more details about their customizations because it would really be great to know how much SandForce allows customization and what the customization can do.
| Price Comparison (4/30/2013) | |||||
| 60/64GB | 120/128GB | 240/256GB | |||
| Kingston SSDNow V300 | $70 | $110 | $200 | ||
| Kingston HyperX 3K | N/A | $120 | $230 | ||
| Corsair Neutron GTX | N/A | $125 | $220 | ||
| Corsair Neutron | N/A | $120 | $200 | ||
| Corsair Force GS | N/A | $130 | $210 | ||
| Plextor M5 Pro | N/A | $130 | $230 | ||
| Plextor M5S | N/A | $110 | $190 | ||
| Crucial m4 | $80 | $130 | $200 | ||
| Intel SSD 520 | $100 | $145 | $270 | ||
| Intel SSD 330 | $90 | N/A | $220 | ||
| Samsung SSD 840 Pro | N/A | $150 | N/A | ||
| Samsung SSD 840 | N/A | $110 | $190 | ||
| OCZ Vector | N/A | $140 | $270 | ||
| Mushkin Chronos Deluxe | N/A | $130 | $185 | ||
Because the V300 doesn't bring anything special to the market, pricing is more important than ever. The V300 is affordable but not exceptionally cheap. Right now you can find Plextor M5S and Samsung SSD 840 for the same price or even for slightly less, and I would rather pick one of them instead of the V300. However, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the prices quoted in the table because pricing fluctuates and NewEgg is just one reseller. If you're buying an SSD, I suggest that you follow the prices for a few days and try to catch a hot sale.
In general I think Kingston should differentiate their SSDs more because the V300 and HyperX 3K are too similar. For example giving the HyperX 3K a 5-year warranty would help justify its high-end positioning and a higher price too, but currently Kingston is selling two very similar products at nearly identical price points. That's not the ideal way to do business, especially when one of the products is supposed to be a budget mainstream drive while the other is aimed towards enthusiasts.
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blackmagnum - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
Kingston have the brand image to succeed in this market but their product lack the unique selling point. They are just commodities like their ram sticks.Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
Which is exactly the point I was trying to raise. Kingston has a decent image and their distribution system is broad but their products are not unique. They shouldn't have a problem surviving in the market but they won't be able to grab any major marketshare either.UltraTech79 - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
I don't think their goal is to grab major market share. Its to maintain and secure their current market share.Diagrafeas - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
Which firmware did the drives have?I bought two 120GB ones a week apart.
The first has 505 and the second 506.
The 506 is way slower...even at booting Windows.
I'll post some numbers later...
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
The 120GB I have is 505. I don't have the 240GB anymore but I'm pretty confident it's 505 too as I received it a couple of months ago so it's not exactly new.Diagrafeas - Thursday, May 2, 2013 - link
Both are on SATA 2AS SSD Benchmark Scores 505-506(Read,Write)
Seq256-175 , 158-133
4K 14-11 , 45-26
4K-64
Diagrafeas - Thursday, May 2, 2013 - link
4K-64 123-91 , 109-114Acc. Time 0.138-0.195 , 0.321-0.405
Pyrostemplar - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
On the second table - Kingston SSDNow V300 Specifications - performance drops as capacity increases, something that being correct is completely new in terms of SSDs. AFAIK in every SSD the higher capacity ones have the same or greater performance than lower capacity ones (of the same model, of course). C&P mistake?Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
Nope, it's not a mistake (unless Kingston's datasheet is wrong):http://www.kingston.com/datasheets/sv300s3_us.pdf
mike55 - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - link
The images on page 3 aren't working for me.Is there any significant difference in the msachi drivers compared to intel rst? Is it worth installing the intel ones when using an SSD?