Kingston SSDNow V+100 96GB Upgrade Kit Storage   Page 1

Reviewer: RWL Staff Article Publish Date: 4/1/2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

    With SSD prices dropping (at least for the low/mid performance drives) this is one of the best moments for someone to get one and use it as a boot drive. Of course we have a very long way ahead of us for people to start using solid state drives for backup purposes or storing data in general since not only their prices are much higher than those of ordinary HDDs but also because there aren't really available SSD models with equal capacities. Now during the last 2 years we have performed two large SSD roundups with the best-selling units in the market but since technology never halts today we bring you the latest SSD solution by Kingston the SSDNow V+100 Series.

   

 

    Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is the world’s independent memory leader. Founded in 1987 with a single product offering, Kingston® now offers more than 2,000 memory products that support nearly every device that uses memory, from computers, servers and printers to MP3 players, digital cameras and mobile phones. In 2009, the company's sales reached $4.1 billion. With global headquarters in Fountain Valley, California, Kingston employs more than 4,000 people worldwide. Regarded as one of the “Best Companies to Work for in America” by Fortune magazine, Kingston’s tenets of respect, loyalty, flexibility and integrity create an exemplary corporate culture. Kingston believes that investing in its people is essential, and each employee is a vital part of Kingston’s success. Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs.

 

 

    Much like with the previous SSDNow series the V+100 line features Toshiba brand controllers and includes 5 different models with capacities ranging from 64GB up to 512GB. The previous V+ series also featured the same Toshiba controller but according to Kingston the latest firmware used with the V+100 drives will further improve their performance by an additional 25%. Perhaps the only hardware difference between the V+100 series and the previous V+ series is the die shrink used for each controller and so whereas the previous Toshiba controller found on the V+ had a die size of 43nm the new version used with the V+100 is just 32nm. The change in size improved the power draw of the drive but unfortunately the firmware used with this version is incompatible with the previous V+ models.