Kingston SSDNow V+ G2

Article Index
Kingston SSDNow V+ G2
Specifications
Technical explanations
Package contents
Benchmark
Conclusion
All Pages

This time around we take a look at Kingston’s newest SSD, SSDNow V+ G2, developed collaboration with Toshiba to create the best SSD. We can already reveal that the product managed to impress us, so please do read our thorough review.

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Kingston SSDNow V+ G2 is an update of SSDNow V+ G1, and this time Kingston partnered with Toshiba to obtain the highest performance and reliability. However, this does not necessarily mean Toshiba provides Kingston’s SSDs with NAND flash memory, as Kingston likes to keep their options open to ensure the customer will always get the best product.

The drive is available separately or in an upgrade bundle that includes everything you need to update your computer with an SSD. It is such a bundle we are looking at.

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Kingston is the world’s largest RAM maker and is based in Fountain Valley, California, but also has factories and warehouses in England, Ireland, Malaysia, China and Taiwan. In 2008, Kingston had revenues of 4 billion dollars, and they employ about 4000 people around the world.

The SSDNow V+ series is designed for the discerning user who wants greater capacity and a more advanced controller with all the greater performance that brings in comparison to the SSDNow V series.
Since it is now possible to have a large capacity (256 and 512GB) SSD, the recommendation that it should be used a boot drive is now void – you can simply use the SSD as your primary and only drive in your laptop or desktop computer.

Specifications

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Category
This drive is aimed at the professional user and smaller enterprises. However, the bundle makes it easier for the average user to mount and install the SSD in his or her computer.

Interface
SATA 300 (SATA 150 compatible)

Speed
Not specified.

Flash type
MLC.

Dimensions
Standard 2.5” (this is a thin model that will fit in any laptop)

Size
64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB – We reviewed the 128GB model

Warranty
This product has a 3 year warranty.

Operating system
All.

Price
You can get it for about £260 around the web.

Technical explanations

What is SSD
SSD stands for solid state drive. It is based on NAND flash memory, of which there are two kinds: MLC (multi-level cell) and SLC (single-level cell).

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In the field of electronics, a multi-level cell (MLC) is a memory device capable of storing more than a single bit of information.

MLC NAND Flash is a flash-memory technology which – by using several levels per cell – allows more bits to be stored as opposed to SLC NAND flash-technology, which only uses a single level per cell.

At the moment, most MLC NAND units store four states per cell, so the four states give two bits of information per cell. This reduces the margin that separates these states, resulting in a larger error rate. MLC NAND has the advantage of being cheap due to the more compact storage method, but this requires greater software complexity to compensate for the higher error rate.
The higher error rate requires an algorithm that can correct errors up to five bits and identify states with more than five bad bits. The most commonly used algorithm is Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH-code), but let us not dwell on the specifics.

SLC units work the other way around, using two cells per bit to give an even lower rate of error.

SSDs contain more than memory chips, however; another important component is the controller. It “controls” all the data that goes back and forth, and is where the complicated algorithm required for MLC SSD must be carried out. In fact, MLC requires three times more raw processing power than SLC, so the controller is of vital importance to performance. The firmware that manufacturers employ can often optimise your drive considerably with a new and improved algorithm or the like, so it is advisable to look out for SSD firmware updates, although watch out for beta (test) versions.

What is TRIM command
Most operating systems utilise writing blocks of 4KB. If you want to overwrite 4KB of data from the full blocks on an SSD, 512KB of data must be deleted and rewritten. This problem is solved by TRIM.

When Windows shows, for example, there is only 100GB of capacity on the drive, there is more in reality. This is because the OS has designated an area to be used for moving data, and so it is hidden and unavailable to the user. This “buffer” corresponds to about 6-7% of the drives total capacity. This buffer is typically increased in size on SSDs to increase performance.

TRIM allows the SSD drive to prioritise which blocks to clean. The OS provides the drive with the address of the cells that are to be deleted, but lets the drive decide when the action is carried out. When data is deleted from a block, it moves the valid data to the buffer area and the block is marked for deletion. The drive then decides when exactly a give block is deleted and overwritten. Sort of like in Tetris, data is only overwritten when there is an entire block, i.e. 512KB.

You can compare it with the defragmentation of an ordinary hard drive – the difference is just that the SSD carries out the task, rather than the OS.

What is IO/s (IOPS)
An abbreviation for Input/Output Operations Per Second. This can be viewed as how many of either inputs or outputs of a given block size the drive can handle per second. Thus IOPS must be higher the smaller the blocks KB you want to read or write, given that you want to retain an average read/write speed at all block sizes. By extension, the lower the amount of IOPS required, the greater the block size in KB.

What is Access time
The time is takes the drive to access the segment it seeks.

Package contents
Since this is a special bundle, a lot of great things were included that you usually do not get with an SSD.

Contents:

Kingston SSDNow V+ G2
2.5" to 3.5" mount brackets
2 bags of 4 screws each for each mount
SATA power adapter
SATA data cable
Acronis True Image HD cloning software
microUSB to USB adapter
External 2.5" hard drive cabinet

The box itself is very simple but still has some personality. Kingston has opted to focus more on showing the mainstream user that this is a major upgrade for the computer, and has thus kept all numbers but capacity away from the box. Even the rear features naught but lists with information – no numbers.

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The cabinet itself is unchanged from earlier models. A strong aluminium construction with a slightly rough surface gives a rugged look that goes really well with the sticker of Kingston’s “Stone man”.

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The excellent package of accessories that allows you to mount the disk in your laptop or desktop without having to go out and spend time and money on more tools.

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Kingston has included a very sleek box to mount the drive in when you need to clone the OS from your old hard drive, and then you can always convert the old drive to an external one once you have mounted the new SSD.

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There is always something to learn about an SSD, so we took the drive apart to see what was hidden inside. Not surprisingly, both the NAND memory and controller were from Toshiba.
The controller itself is a Toshiba Daikoku 2(DKK2) which, as far as I know, has only been seen in Toshiba’s own products before that are not particularly well-known in this market.
The print is also identical to the one Toshiba presented when they launched their new 512GB SSD about a month and a half ago, so it is probability a finished product that Kingston purchased from Toshiba.

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There is nothing at the rear, but I would be surprised if it were so on the 256 and 512GB models.

Benchmark

The test setup:

IBM T61
CPU: Intel P8400 - 2,4GHz
Graphics: 128MB nVidia Quadro NVS 140M

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
AHCI support enabled in BIOS

Antivirus and other applications that can affect performance are not installed

Drive defragmentation off

Drives
Test: Kingston SSDNow V+ G2 - 128GB

Comparison: Kingston SSDNow V+ G1 - 64GB

This will be translated to UK soon

Test-applications
- ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.34
- HD Tach 3.0.4.0
The drive supports TRIM, but since it does not appear to influence performance either way, we decided to just mention it.

ATTO Disk Benchmark
Here we look at the transfer speed of different file sizes.

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It is surprising to see that the new drive is actually slower than the old one at smaller file chunks. However, it vastly outperforms at greater file sizes. This disparity might be due to different controllers in the two.
In general, the performance of the newer drive does not fall over time, so it will easily be the fastest one no matter what.

HD Tach
We used HD Tach for test the seek time.

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They managed to reduce the seek time even more even though it was already very low.
Although it is not a huge upgrade and a whole new class of performance Kingston has come up with, I would still recommend getting this upgrade. The support of TRIM will easily makes the new drive much quicker than the old one.

Conclusion

Kingston manages to positively surprise with a controller from Toshiba that supports TRIM and performs really well.
The greatest innovation is the excellent bundle that enables the average user to mount his own drive – the whole process of putting parts together and cloning the old drive is now incredibly user-friendly.
Unfortunately, the manual does not come in all local languages – I had a talk with Kingston about this and it does not seem like they plan to change it, which is a bit of a shame given how much energy they have spent on making a user-friendly bundle.
1 hour and 10 clicks were all it took to clone my 90GB drive with the included software, after which I was able to use SSDNow V+ G2 as my primary drive. Including installation it takes about 90 minutes in total to replace your old drive with an SSD, and the only thing that changes is the improved performance of the SSD and incredible seek time.
The cherry on top and final aspect that really needs to be there in order to justify the larger cost of an SSD is the TRIM support, and I am happy to say it has it all. This product is no less than impressive.

Pros:
Performance
Excellent, optional bundle
User-friendly installation manual
Support of TRIM

Cons:
Manual does not come in all local languages