Kingston ssdNow v300

[Sanitarium]

I know very little about SSDs other than the fact they're fast. I bought a Samsung 840 EVO for my desktop a few weeks ago to and it's very fast but I'm looking for an SSD for my laptop now. I came across the Kingston v300 120gb on Amazon for $70 shipped and it seems like a good fit for my old 2009 laptop. Question is is will it be as painfully slow as the mechanical drive in there now or will I get a nice boost from the SSD? The reviews on Amazon mention things like Kingston switched the memory they use which makes the drives slower and stuff like that. What's the deal with this drive? I don't care that it's not as good as my EVO as it's going in a laptop I don't use all that often, but I do not want something that's going to be as slow as that POS 5400 rpm mech drive that's in there now.

 

[Liger88]

The reviews on Amazon mention things like Kingston switched the memory they use which makes the drives slower and stuff like that.

lol yeah that means crap unless you get a hard on with insane over-the-top unnecessary IOPS and riding the SATA 3.0 interface to the edge. But if you're not transferring large data constantly or doing a running a server to care about those high IOPS, then it is irrelevant for the most part.

I got myself a cheap Mushkin 480GB because the price was $340. I notice no difference compared to my new high-end Corsair. I doubt you will notice the difference either. Yes, it will make your laptop feel like new again, so long as the CPU doesn't completely suck, and even then you'll see a vast improvement. When it comes to breathing life into fading laptops, nothing wrong with going cheap on the SSD at all. Comparing even a 1st Gen SSD to a 15K Veliciraptor drive is insulting to the SSD.

 

[AllBlackFan]

Don't touch the V300.

read these

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1742262
http://www.overclock.net/t/1457629/psa-about-the-kingston-v300-ssd-probable-foul-play-by-kingston
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2316409
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1ur11x/discussion_psa_about_the_kingston_v300_ssd/

Gives you a general idea, Kingston thought it was acceptable to use slower cheaper asynchronous nand and just use the same model number.

"We use NAND from various manufacturers both synchronous and asynchronous. The first revision you have is made with synchronous and the second asynchronous.
Both versions however conform to our specifications as stated in the datasheet and will enable a good user experience as expected from SSDs. Fast boot, fast application performance, improved battery life and much better random performance versus traditional HDD technology.
If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to reply to this e-mail with full email history. Thank you for using Kingston on-line technical support"

From Newegg

"Hello, I'm Jewel with Kingston Technical Support. We are here to help and can advise on the best settings to get the most out of the V300. Please understand we designed the V300 to be an entry-level SSD with a good mix of price and performance. As you indicated, the V300 can be manufactured with Synchronous or Asynchronous NAND from various Tier 1 NAND manufacturers..."

What a coincidence not a single review drive on the net uses Asynchronous, what. a. surprise. /s

 

[Sanitarium]

Just thought I'd comment as I had already ordered the drive when I posted this. I got mine today and it seems fine. Got over 250 read with the SATA II interface this laptop has using crystal mark and the laptop has come to life as expected. I received a Taiwan built drive with 505 firmware. While the speeds aren't 450 because I'm using SATA II I assume, it's hardly noticeable as this laptop is now a shadow of it's former self. Pretty happy with the upgrade for $70. No storage issues either as this laptop has two HD bays.