Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD Review Comment Thread

[AkG]

Look around for the Sammy 830. It might be older kit...but still very good (last gen Marvell controller and NAND).

[IRQ Conflict]

There is a $200.00 price premium on the 840 Pro vs. the 840 (non pro) 512 GB model. What is up with that?

Also (knew to me) is the debate over MLC vs. SLC. I haven't looked into that yet though. Someone had mentioned it in a user review on the Egg.

Just reading an Anand review on 830 vs. 840 pro. Again, thanks for the suggestion!

Ah! Just looked at the wiki for this. Explains a lot. Except for price it would seem SLC wins hands down.

Edit: OK, new acronym. TLC. Damn, just when I thought I had it all figured out.

Edit#2: Seems like the only option for the 830's are the 500GB models at around $450.00. For that you can nearly get two 840 Pro's in the 256GB model. What kind of sick games are the retailers playing with consumers?

[AkG]

OK this is quick n dirty...so its only kinda sorta right...ish. Good enough for gov'ment work. BUT dont take it as gospel...with lots more variables Im not gonna touch. ;)

SLC is Single Level....two states 0 or 1. Very durable, very fast at writes. Only one bit per cell.
MLC is MUlti Level...four states. Not as durable, fairly fast. Easy to mass produce...cheap. Two bits per cell.
TLC is TRI Level...six states. More fragile, not as fast. Very cheap to make (50% less cells needed for X capacity compared to MLC). THREE bits per cell. It is unproven technology...and I personally am waiting a gen before ever opting for it as we have no idea on durability, etc. This is why I would never recommend a TLC based 840 std edition.

One of the reasons the big ones are so expensive is NAND density. Each gen of NAND is only a certain density per package / 'chip'. Going above that requires stacking (think MLC cell stacked on top of another layer of MLC cells)... Two layers is called dual die pkg. This is what is in 256GB models (usually...always exceptions). Sinlge layer is usually used in 128s (again with exceptions...etc etc etc).

Since that is the two most popular sizes with consumers (smaller drives usu less chips)....it is the most popular with mfg'ers of the drives (ie the companies who place the order with the NAND mfg'ers). Since that is what these companies mainly order....most production is geared towards it.

Since less is being made...it costs more. Of course there is also the mega factor / bragging rights issue....and flagship models ALWAYS cost more.

[IRQ Conflict]

OK this is quick n dirty...so its only kinda sorta right...ish. Good enough for gov'ment work.

Ain't that the truth! Quick and dirty is fine! Thanks for the explanation AkG.

Regrettably, I don't think I can get away with a 64 or 128GB SSD. With just the OS and two games installed I've used 148GB's of space. And if I read correctly 20% of an SSD's space should be left unallocated. So 256GB drive is the sweet spot for most gamers I assume.

[AkG]

Yeah I like to keep 20% free. I consider 15% to be the minimum I personally would feel comfortable with. I usually just make the partition 20% smaller that way I dont 'forget' (aka poor mans Over-Provisioning...as if you cant see it...you cant USE it).

If you had a new rig I would say just get two smaller 256 and RAID them (RST passes trim in RAID now)....since that is not an option....Get two. Make one the OS drive and app drive. The other for games. Could probably get away with a 128 and 256 that way...but remember the 128s are slighly slower than the 256'ers. ;)

[IRQ Conflict]

Thanks. Yeah, I think I'm leaning towards a single 256 840 Pro. Worst case is I suffer for having an older system but when I do upgrade I will see it's full potential. I am really interested to see just how much my hard drive has been messing with the performance of the system and games. I've heard it's one of the better things I can do for it.

I have upgraded the CPU Q6600@ 3.2Ghz > Q9550@3.8 Ghz
GPU 5870 1GB vram >7970 3GB vram (this really kicked it in the daddy bags)
Ram 4GB >8GB

So, I expect the thrashing to be minimized when gaming with an SSD.

[tangrisser]

Originally Posted by AkG

Yeah I like to keep 20% free. I consider 15% to be the minimum I personally would feel comfortable with. I usually just make the partition 20% smaller that way I dont 'forget' (aka poor mans Over-Provisioning...as if you cant see it...you cant USE it).

I never thought to use partition to over-provision! That's a really good idea, will definitely do that for my next PC. (whenever that is...)