The new series of Kingston’s high performance drives will feature the fastest speeds that Kingston has ever offered in their V+ line of SSDs. These new drives will also feature TRIM support for Windows 7 users which means that users can expect to experience long term high performance use of their drives without the fear of degradation as a result of not having TRIM. In addition to this, Kingston is now using a Toshiba controller on their new drives in addition to using Toshiba NAND. As a result, this is a 100% Kingston developed drive which means that Kingston has worked with Toshiba every step of the way to develop these drives.
Kingston will be offering these drives in capacities ranging from 64GB up to 512GB. As a result, the prices will range from $268 to $1985. We’re not quite sure how they will justify the prices for these drives considering the competition’s speeds and prices, but we hope that they will be able to show the value that these drives bring in order to validate the price point.
Using PCMark Vantage 1.0.1 for Windows 7 Kingston tested the 512GB SSDNow V+ drive received a score of 28,264, whereas a 7200RPM hard-disk drive reached 3,294. They used a test bench consisting of an Intel DG945ID Desktop Motherboard; Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 CPU at 2.83GHz; 4GB system memory; on-board SATA 3Gbps with AHCI-enabled; Windows 7 Professional x64 to achieve this score. We find it a bit interesting that Kingston even bothers comparing their 512GB drive to a 7200RPM drive considering the fact that there are already so many SSDs out there that they would be better served comparing them against competitor’s products for a true understanding of what’s going on.
As part of Kingston’s goal to provide an easy upgrade path, the drive is also available with a bundle that includes cloning software, 2.5" USB enclosure, 2.5" to 3.5" mounting brackets and SATA data and power cables. The Kingston SSDNow V+ solid-state drive will be backed by a three-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and legendary Kingston reliability. We commend Kingston on the bundling as many manufacturers out there still do not include 2.5" to 3.5" mounting brackets which inevitably drive up the cost of the drive as well as the time it takes to install it if you have to go out and buy it.
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