Kingston SSDNow V-Series 64 GB

[asmith]

Just ordered a Kingston V-Series 64GB SSd for my S10e. Couldn't google any reviews on this puppy but I believe it's a re-badged OCZ.

Decided to go with the Kingston because they are offering a three year warranty, it's bundled with Acronis cloning software and external USB enclosure, and I've always been cool with Kingston memory in my systems. The cloning kit should make installation easy and fast. But I may just keep the original drive intact and do a clean install of Ubuntu netbook remix. Going to upgrade system RAM to 2GB as well.

Kingston SSDNow V-Series 64 GB SATA2 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive with Notebook Upgrade Kit Bundle SNV125-S2BN/64GB

Ordered from Amazon.com for $135 with free shipping. Amazon doesn't always have the lowest price but since I'm not in the "lower 48", shipping from Newegg.com or other resellers can push the price up. When I placed my order Newegg's price was $149 plus $16 shipping.

I post my results when it's installed, in the mean time has anyone else used one of these a Kingston SSD?

Alan

[asmith]

My drive shipped today, won't arrive until June 22nd, but in the meantime a few reviews showed up on Newegg.com one says:

Pros: I contacted Kingston directly to find out what controller these drives use. Their response is below.

Cons: See below

Other Thoughts: Kingston's SSD V Series uses the J-Micron controller. Kingston's engineers have worked closely with Toshiba and J-Micron counterparts over the past 6 months to ensure the drive is stable and ready to bring to market. The controller has gone through several firmware changes and exhaustive testing. We have resolved the lag and stuttering issues that occurred with earlier solid-state drives using this particular controller. Our tests show that Kingston's SSD V Series is stable and has the quality that our customers continue to expect from our products.

There are a couple of other reviews.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820139006

Alan

[mister2]

Hopefully the lag and stuttering issues are resolved. This issue is what has kept me away from SSD. Let us know how it works out for you.

[asmith]

Aloha,

Installed my Kingston SSDNow 64 GB last night and it's working very well so far. Yes it's faster. How much faster? I'm not going to install a benchmark program and run before and after tests, so the best I can offer is my seat of the pants impression. Boot time and program loading is quicker - but not so much that there's any real "Wow" factor for me.

Product is nicely packed, instructions are on the CD, installation was quick and easy. I used the included usb enclosure and Arconis software to clone the original 160GB drive to the SSD. The CD is self booting, so I had to find an external CD drive to boot from. The software allows you to re-partition the SSD, so I went with 20GB for XP and 40GB installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The other 4GB was for a Windows Vista partition, which I suspect is the recovery area. The usb enclosure is made of plastic and powered by the usb connection. Cloning took about 10 minutes start to finish.

The SSD drive is about the same weight as the original Western Digital HD, so no weight savings. The area under the HD is a little cooler now with the SSD installed. Battery life improvement - too soon to say. Noise is reduced, all I can hear now is the system fan. Would I buy another one? No. My intention was to remove the original hard drive and retain as a backup, and install other operating systems on a different drive. So from that angle it worked out, but I could have done that with a $50 rotational drive. I think SSDs are still too expensive right now and I'm glad I didn't shell out more money than I did. One of the the Intel drives would likely have had more of the "Wow" factor - but at too high a price for me.

Today I installed Ubuntu Remix. My S10e still boots into Quick Start. From Quick Start choosing OS boot launches GRUB, where Windows XP is listed under "other operating systems". Dual booting to these three options is what I wanted, along with the safety of reverting to the original drive, so the Kingston got me here without any hassles. And one more thing, so far no stuttering and no lagging.
Alan

[keplenk]

Hi,

I'm just wondering how yo managed to make that SSD to fit the in 2.5 HDD tray? For some reason, my kingston SSDnow 64gb ssd does not fit, not matter what I do. Did you do any modifications of some sort to make it fit?

Thanks!

[id4170]

My didn't fit either because the case doesn't
t have enough space where meet with the ssd case remove out the case you will lose the warranty, on the ssd board you will find 4 screws attach those with the bracket from your old hdd and you all set any questions please let me know
glty

[keplenk]

My didn't fit either because the case doesn't
t have enough space where meet with the ssd case remove out the case you will lose the warranty, on the ssd board you will find 4 screws attach those with the bracket from your old hdd and you all set any questions please let me know
glty

Hi,

I actually managed to remove it. However, mine did not have any sticker on it. I removed it and I think it did not break the warranty.

However, removing one side of the Kingston case (the one with the Kingston label) is not advisable. The full case is being used by the SSD as a heatsink. So removing one part of the case heats up my netbook. 42 Celsius which is very hot for an SSD IMO. The same Kingston SSD, when plugged into my desktop, runs at about 28 Celsius. So something isn't right.

I'm trying to be creating without breaking the warranty, but I fail. If you have any suggestions to fix the heat issue, that would be awesome.