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Kingston SSDs any good?

gmaster456

gmaster456

Golden Member
I know they are on the lower end of the SSD spectrum but are they junk? I'm not looking for top of the line performance. Just something faster than a HDD that will handle office type needs fairly well. (MS Office, firefox, email etc.) Newegg has a 120gb Kingston SSD on sale for $60 so I was curious.
 
Read the reviews closely. There was a version where they swapped the NAND on the second revision and reduced the performance drastically. This was of course after the reviews were finished and showed the drive in a good light.
 
gmaster456 said:
I know they are on the lower end of the SSD spectrum but are they junk? I'm not looking for top of the line performance. Just something faster than a HDD that will handle office type needs fairly well. (MS Office, firefox, email etc.) Newegg has a 120gb Kingston SSD on sale for $60 so I was curious.
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There are differences in the Kingston 120's. I picked one up shortly after the big price drop and it was the "Taiwan" made version which apparently used the faster NAND. That drive absolutely screamed with a clean install of Win 8.1....and it was $60.
 
gmaster456 said:
I know they are on the lower end of the SSD spectrum but are they junk? I'm not looking for top of the line performance. Just something faster than a HDD that will handle office type needs fairly well. (MS Office, firefox, email etc.) Newegg has a 120gb Kingston SSD on sale for $60 so I was curious.
Click to expand...

The one on Newegg is typically the V300, and that one is sort of janky since they swapped the NAND to a cheaper, lower quality product without telling anyone. And it has all of the usual non-Intel SandForce peculiarities. Spend the extra $10-20 on a 120 GB (or similar capacity) crucial m500, Samsung 840 EVO, or a SanDisk Ultra Plus.

Better yet, you get a really nice perf boost for not very much more money by going with 240-256 GB drives.

The 240 GB Crucial m500 is only $105 shipped on Amazon and $109 w/ promo at newegg

The 250 GB Samsung 840 EVO is $140 shipped on Amazon

The 256 GB SanDisk Ultra Plus is $125 shipped from Amazon
 
There is no way I would ever purchase a Kingston SSD given their track record. They had a short run where they were acceptable, but the ruined that with their bad behavior. Your system's long-term reliability is worth the extra $20 spot.
 
I'll recommend EVO's myself, I use em and the only ones I have I guess so far.

Have a couple in here been working great awhile now.
 
I've got a Kingston Hyper X in my laptop that I got a year or so ago that's worked fine. Is it one of the "bad ones" and I'm just lucky? I've owned OCZ SSD's so I have a pretty good idea what really crappy SSD's are.
 
After owning a Kingston HyperX 3K 480GB SSD, I will never EVER touch any SSD from Kingston. Crappy firmwares that are never updated, bad support, and horrible performance

It had horrible write speeds,close to 170 MB/s. Only in ATTO Disk Benchmark which uses compressed data did it get 500 MB/S but in my day to day operations, it sucked bad. It was in dire need of a firmware update. I kept emailing support with no luck

in fact, check this image I just took, they still didn't update the firmware since 2012 despite the many complaints! horrible company! never get anything from them

 
ronbo613 said:
I've got a Kingston Hyper X in my laptop that I got a year or so ago that's worked fine. Is it one of the "bad ones" and I'm just lucky? I've owned OCZ SSD's so I have a pretty good idea what really crappy SSD's are.
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We must be identical twins because i owned two OCZ's drives, a 64GB and 120GB before buying a Kingston Hyper X 3K last Thanksgiving for more space. I was going to get some other brands that were cheaper until the reviews complained about too many dying within a year.

OP just read reviews online aside from the one others have warned about a switch in NAND.
 
Kingston has good price and good RMA, New someone who did a RMA with them,, went easy 2 week process from time u send it, and get back a refurbished or new one.. gl
 
My first Kingston SSD purchase was a V200 for my wifes older SATA1.5 laptop.
It has been an excellent drive for it's intended purpose. It was like a breath of fresh air for the old workhorse. Very reliable for the last few years and she isn't the best with computers.

I did purchase one of the newer V300 series and so far all I have used if for was to get a speed comparison against my Crucial M500. It was very slow compared to the Crucial. I have no input as far as reliability goes though.

From my own limited personal experience I would spend a few more dollars and get a drive with less controversy surrounding it.
 
I have a Kingston SSD in my wifes desktop and it's pretty shitty. I'd avoid them. Bad support and lack of updates makes them a poor company to deal with.
 
StinkyPinky said:
I have a Kingston SSD in my wifes desktop and it's pretty shitty. I'd avoid them. Bad support and lack of updates makes them a poor company to deal with.
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I wouldn't judge the whole company based on just one misstep with SSD's. They still make excellent RAM and other memory products. Their SSD's apart from the V300 aren't bad. And they've also ventured into gaming peripherals. The HyperX Cloud headset is actually quite nice for what it costs
 
They still make excellent RAM
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I've had, and know several other people who have had, excellent experiences with their support for RAM warranties/RMA's, to say nothing of RAM that has just worked forever without any troubles.

Here's to hoping that they move past this V300 mis-step. It would be a shame if it ends up souring their reputation.

I still wouldn't buy a V300, though 😛
 
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