Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD Review

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SATA 2 Performance

SATA 2 Performance

In a perfect world everyone investing in a new solid state drive would have access to a SATA 6GB/s controller which could pass on the TRIM command. In reality not everyone has this and for many the decision comes down either giving up TRIM – never a good idea with most controllers – and running it off a secondary controller; or taking a performance hit and running in SATA 2.0 mode.

These tests will consist of some of our real world and synthetic benchmarks run on our standard 1155 test-bed; but the drive will be attached to an SATA 2 port.

For synthetic we have opted for the newcomer to our charts: Anvil Storage Utilities Pro. For real world we have opted for our Adobe test. These two tests should give you a very good idea of the level of performance impact you can expect from running a modern SATA 6 drive in compatibility mode.

Although the performance of the V300 does suffer from being used in SAT 3Gb/s mode, these numbers are still quite reasonable. It appears that the 19nm NAND and custom firmware does help the aging SF2281 controller better cope with being run in compatibility mode.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

Kingston’s V-series SSDs have a long history of offering competitively priced solutions which tend to punch above their weight class on the performance front. This has endeared them to enthusiasts and novices alike since relatively low pricing and outstanding real-world results is an enticing combination for pretty much everyone. The V300 is the latest iteration of this storied line and like its predecessors, this SSD provides nearly everything we could want from a budget-friendly storage solution.

By using a customized SF2281 controller and NAND technology which was considered bleeding edge not that long ago, Kingston was performed a delicate balancing act to ensure optimal performance without massive sacrifices. It may not have been able to burn up our charts at every turn but the V300 provided its best results in the areas which count the most to end users: real world system / application load times and on-disk data transfer capabilities. When paired up with the included data migration software (you’ll need the Upgrade Version for this), we can see this SSD as a perfect choice for giving an outdated notebook or PC a new lease on life. It can even be considered a worthwhile upgrade for a modern HDD-centric system provided you can stomach the capacity difference between the affordable V300 and a similarly priced high end hard drive.

Since it represents Kingston’s lowest tier on the performance scale, one can’t expect miracles despite the V300’s use of ONFI NAND and the well-regarded SandForce SF2281. There are some pretty significant performance drop-offs in deeper queue depth testing but luckily, a home user will rarely encounter one of those scenarios. In addition, the SF2281 can’t keep up with newer controllers when it comes to performance retention as the drive fills up but that’s no different from most other drives in its price category.

With the V300, Kingston needed to outperform the competition without stepping on the toes of its bigger brother, the HyperX series. Threading this needle wasn’t easy but the newest addition to the SSDNow family accomplishes everything it set out to do without alienating anyone. The V300 provides excellent value, reasonable performance, easy to use data migration software and a great warranty, making this one of the most accessible SSDs currently available.