Besides the lowered height, SSDNow V300 seems
to have not more visual differences than its predecessor, SSDNow V +200. The
cover is still made of metal with the tar finish having grey-like color. The
large labels on the surface of the drive are designed in the same way. So, the
product can be easily recognized as SSDNow belongings.
Hardware
components
The specific attention of Kingston is at
the realizable details in the case. The 2 halves of the case are neatly
attached and there’s solid thermal conduction layer inside, between PCB and the
case, to ensure suitable cooling ability.
The
product PCB
PCB itself is a little changeable. It has
the same component layout as other PCBs of the SandForce-platform drive but all
the chips will have Kingston logo. We have seen such brands with the flash
memory chips before (it normally means that the SSD makers buy them as uncut
panel and the semiconductor pack is fixed into its own basis) but we’ve never
dealt with the re-branded SSD controller. However, there’s no doubt that it’s
the universal LSI SF-2281, because it’s indicated by the SandForce word sitting
under Kingston logo.
Product
PCB
For the memory chip, the "FD16B08UCT1-8C"
line doesn’t give us any clue about the origin of them but we know that SSDNow
V300 uses MLC flash memory produced on the 19nm technical process. It may be MLC
NAND flash of Toshiba with syncing Toggle Mode interface. It’s a kind of extremely
high-speed memory used on the best SSD for the most premium customer class on
the world such as Corsair Neutron GTX or Plextor M5 Pro. To be straightforward,
it’s a surprise to see such chip in the entry-level SSDNow V300 model but it
makes the product more interesting, especially when we don’t think that such
flagship memory will pay a long visit to the entry-level SSD. It can be
replaced by the NAND TLC in the near future, but firmware for SF-2281 controller
is free from TLC NAND support.
We don’t know how Kingston did that but the
SSDNow V300 line is costly considering the used components. It’s the most
attractive one in price/performance ratio. There’s only one apprehensive fact
about it, which need to be specific, about its nature. The specific characteristic
of the SandForce controllers offer some flexibility for the makers, so they
usually assign higher-than-average speed. It’s different from Kingston SSDNow
V300. Thus, Kingston SSDNow V300 looks worse than 3K HyperX and even its SSDNow
V +200 predecessor (the model using asynchronous flash) in its consecutive
regulated speed. Anyhow, this may be of some problems in price.
There’re somem strange things about Kingston
SSDNow V300: Its given longevity is shorter than 3K HyperX and SSDNow V +200. The
makers warranty up to 192 terabyte of data in text format for their
last-generation 240GB SSD but 240GB SSDNow V300 is the expectation for the up
to 128 terabyte write speed. We may think of 2 reasons for that. SSD can use flash
memory chip with the longevity of 2000 cycles or rewrite all which may be due
to some marketing methods. To clarify this respect, we turn to Kingston to be
helped but received an ambiguous comment, which acntually don’t explain the
real full reason of this phenomenon:
"Kingston uses its own wafer processing-ability
to pack the 19nm NAND MLC components for V300 SSD. Normally, the P / E cycle
and productivity boot up thanks to the grown of the wafer process and this is
inherent in Flash NAND which is used in this product. As for all of our SSDs
the TBW figures we announce are conservative, and with DuraWrite tech, those
figures can easily be tripled for a workload of a typical user. "
The low price of the new SSD of Kingston may
be due to the low-quality flash memory, the makers can received from Toshiba with
a lower price, especially when the SandForce controlling tech helps to use such
components without having any negative effect to the last users. That’s the
reason why the capacity is 240 instead of 256 GB, by this way. The remaining
storage apportioned for the reserving fund and LIFE tech. that must be the
reason why SSDNow V300 comes with 3-year warranty.
Therefore, though Kingston just belonged to
the SandForce family product, it’s not its regular representative. There’s no
other SSD with the same components cited. Firmware is also special. Like Intel
520, SSDNow V300 is specialized with the custom firmware for 19nm Toggle Mode flash.
Though, it won’t be much different from the other SandForce-platform products,
as its software is built on the original version (version 5.0.5).
Testing configuration
For our currently SSD testing session, we
decide to upgrade our traditional testing a little bit. From now on, we will
use a consistent system for our tests, which will be built on a Intel H77
platform motherboard, with 2 SATA 6 Gbit/s port feature. We will use the ports
to connect to the testing SSDs.
For today’s product participating in the
testing session, it’s obvious that the new 240 GB Kingston SSDNow V300 should
be compared to different embodiments of the 2nd-generation SandForce
platform as well as for other common SSDs. So, you will see the efficiency
numbers on the diagram for other products based on SandForce which include: Intel
SSD 520, Corsair Force GS and Corsair Force GT, the same to the Kingston HyperX
3K overview. The other platforms will pre represented by the following
participating products: Corsair SSD on LAMD LM87800 controller (Neutron GTX and
neutron), OCZ Vertex 4 on Indilinx Everest 2 controller, the latest OCZ Vector
SSD on Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, Crucial m4 on Marvell 9174, and Plextor SSD
on Marvell 9174 controller (M5S) and Marvell 9187 controller (M5 Pro). All of
the aforementioned drives use the syncing MLC flash memory. Especially, Crucial
m4, Corsair Force GT, Corsair neutron, Intel SSD 520, OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Vector and
Plextor M5S use 25 nm IMFT memory with ONFI interface. And Corsair Force GS,
Corsair Neutron GTX and Plextor M5 Pro use Toggle Mode MLC NAND which is
produced by nm 2x or 19 nm tech.
Our overall test is configured as
follows:
·
Intel Core i5-3470S (Ivy Bridge, 4 cores, 2.9
GHz, EIST and Turbo Boost turned off);
·
Intel DH77DF mainboard (BIOS 0108);
·
2 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 SDRAM DIMM 9-9-9-24-1T;
·
Crucial m4 256 GB system disk (CT256M4SSD2);
·
Tested SSDs:
ü Corsair
Force GS Series 240 GB (CSSD-F240GBGS-BK, firmware version 5.03);
ü Corsair
Force GT Series 240 GB (CSSD-F240GBGT-BK, firmware version 5.03)
ü Corsair
Neutron GTX 240 GB (CSSD-N240GBGTX-BK, firmware version 2.06);
ü Corsair
Neutron 240 GB (CSSD-N240GB3-BK, firmware version 2.06);
ü Crucial
m4 256 GB (CT256M4SSD2, firmware version 070H);
ü Intel
SSD 520 240 GB (SSDSC2CW240A3K5, firmware version 400i);
ü Kingston
SSDNow V300 240 GB (SV300S37A/240G, firmware version 5.0.5);
ü OCZ
Vertex 4 256 GB (VTX4-25SAT3-256G, firmware version 1.5);
ü OCZ
Vector 256 GB (VTR1-25SAT3-256G, firmware version 2.0);
ü Plextor
M5S 256 GB (PX-256M5S, firmware version 1.03);
ü Plextor
M5 Pro 256 GB (PX-256M5P, firmware version 1.03).
ü Microsoft
Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate x64
·
Drivers:
ü Intel
Chipset Driver 9.3.0.1026;
ü Intel
Graphics Media Accelerator Driver 9.17.10.2932;
ü Intel
Rapid Storage Technology 11.7.0.1013.
