[Warm] Kingston V300 (SF-2281 - asynchronous flash) SSDs @ Amazon.com

[B-Riz]

AT Review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6733/kingston-ssdnow-v300-review

Though the AT review is basically invalid as they now use slower flash in the drive.

Pick your flavor through the link below; not sure when expires.

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-2-5-Inch-SV300S37A-120G/dp/B00A1ZTZOG

GB -Price -$ / GB

60 $49.99 $0.83

120 $65.99 $0.55

240 $124.99 $0.52

480 $260.99 $0.54

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Read the reviews on these. There is a reason their prices are low.

 

[B-Riz]

Read the reviews on these. There is a reason their prices are low.

Don't shoot the messenger!:\

People like to complain if they have a bad experience...

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Don't shoot the messenger!:\

People like to complain if they have a bad experience...

Not shooting the messenger, but it's also clear why so many are having such bad experiences.

 

[JBT]

I've got a 120GB version and its been running great for the last year. Its got 4.5 stars and over 500 reviews?!?!?

 

[qliveur]

I've got a 120GB version and its been running great for the last year. Its got 4.5 stars and over 500 reviews?!?!?

Looks like you got one of the earlier ones.

According to quite a few reviewers, Kingston pulled a bait-and-switch with the NAND chips in these drives sometime last year, and now they aren't even capable of SATA II speeds. :\

 

[bbhaag]

I bought one of the 240gig models for my older SATA1.5 laptop. The price point is spectacular and reliability is pretty good on this drive. I'm hoping it will outperform the 80gig 5400 drive in there now. It should.

If I was buying for newer hardware I would probably skip this drive and go for something with less controversy surrounding it.

 

[cubeless]

I bought one of the 240gig models for my older SATA1.5 laptop. The price point is spectacular and reliability is pretty good on this drive. I'm hoping it will outperform the 80gig 5400 drive in there now. It should.

If I was buying for newer hardware I would probably skip this drive and go for something with less controversy surrounding it.

it's going to be excellent in this application, as long as the cpu is at least a dual core true pentium... too slow a cpu or no memory and it just won't be that noticeable... but it won't crash when the laptop gets bumped when running...

 

[billbillw]

The early reviews of these drives were good. However, Kingston did pull a switcheroo on them and all the currently shipping drives use asynchronous NAND.

I have one that I bought in February 2013. It is pretty fast and has been trouble free. I recently bought one from Microcenter for a build and it was dog slow. Only 160MB/s sustained read/write using Crystal Bench. The early model is easily over 450MB/s. I took it back and bought an Intel 335 and was able to get the speeds I expected from an SSD.

Bottom line: These drives will feel fast in comparison to a mechanical drive, but they are noticeably slower than competing SSDs.

 

[B-Riz]

The early reviews of these drives were good. However, Kingston did pull a switcheroo on them and all the currently shipping drives use asynchronous NAND.

I have one that I bought in February 2013. It is pretty fast and has been trouble free. I recently bought one from Microcenter for a build and it was dog slow. Only 160MB/s sustained read/write using Crystal Bench. The early model is easily over 450MB/s. I took it back and bought an Intel 335 and was able to get the speeds I expected from an SSD.

Bottom line: These drives will feel fast in comparison to a mechanical drive, but they are noticeably slower than competing SSDs.

Sadly, this is true.

I did not know it at the time of posting the "Hot Deal", is warm-ish.

A cheap step up from a hot and loud spinner HDD.

Below is a link to Overclock.net detailing the switcheroo.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1457629/psa-about-the-kingston-v300-ssd-probable-foul-play-by-kingston

 

[you2]

Which program do you recommend for benchmarking the drive ? I recently picked up one of these and when I crudely tested the drive I thought the read speed was 500MB/s but perhaps I need some other test...

 

[B-Riz]

AS SSD gives a good quick overview.

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6014-as-ssd-benchmark.html

 

[bbhaag]

it's going to be excellent in this application, as long as the cpu is at least a dual core true pentium... too slow a cpu or no memory and it just won't be that noticeable... but it won't crash when the laptop gets bumped when running...

It's a Turion x2 64 with 4gb of ram and I'm using Peppermint3 for the OS. When Ubuntu 14.04 is released later this year I'll do a switch to Mint Cinnamon. That's when I plan on installing the SSD in the laptop. A hardware change and an OS change....yay! Should be fun. I'm actually pretty excited about it.