Kingston Digital Releases Budget SSD

Kingston Digital Releases SSD Desktop Upgrade Solution

40GB Solid-State Drive to Boost Desktop Performance; Aggressive Launch Promotion with Newegg.com Announced

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of the SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive, the latest addition to its V (Value) family of solid-state drives (SSD). The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to accelerate any desktop's boot, shutdown and application load times. It is available for as low as $84.99 after rebates (U.S. only) at e-tailer Newegg.com at launch*.

"The SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive offers instant performance enhancement coupled with reliability and lower power consumption at a fraction of the cost of a new system," said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston. "The 40GB Boot Drive is the latest offering in our V Series SSD line. It provides a low-cost upgrade solution that complements the installed hard-disk drive to extend the life cycle of existing desktop computers and workstations in homes and offices."

Using the industry-standard PCMark Vantage Advanced HDD Suite, the 40GB Boot Drive received a score of 13,883, whereas a 7200RPM hard-disk drive attained a score of 3,708**. PCMark Vantage Advanced HDD Suite runs a series of tests such as Windows Vista® startup, importing photos, adding music to Windows Media Center and application loading. The score is an indicator of how many bytes were moved per second.

Kingston's SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is designed for novice SSD users looking to increase their current desktop performance. As part of Kingston's goal to provide an easy upgrade path for first-time SSD users as well as do-it-yourself system builders, the drive is also available with a bundle that includes cloning software, 2.5" to 3.5" brackets and SATA data and power cable extenders. The SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is designed for a desktop system to be used in conjunction with an existing hard-disk drive (HDD). A PC operating system and key applications reside on the SSD while all data such as documents, music, files and photos remain on the HDD.

The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive has an MSRP of $115.00 (U.S.) and will begin shipping on November 9, 2009. It is backed by a three-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and legendary Kingston reliability. For more information visit www.kingston.com.

Kingston SSDNow 40GB Boot Drive Features and Specifications:

• Sequential Speed***: up to 170MB/sec. read
  40MB/sec. write
• Performance: enhances productivity; makes users more efficient
• Innovative: 2.5" form factor; uses NAND Flash memory components
• Silent: runs silent and cool with no moving parts
• Reliable: less likely to fail than a standard hard drive
• Shock Resistant: no moving parts; handles rougher conditions than a hard drive
• Supports S.M.A.R.T.: Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology
• Guaranteed: three-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support
• Capacity¹: 40GB
• Storage temperatures: -40° C to 85° C
• Operating temperatures: 0° C to 70° C
• Vibration operating: 2.17G (7-800Hz)
• Vibration non-operating: 20G (20-2000Hz)
• Power specs: Active: 0.15W (TYP); Sleep: 0.06W
• Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF

Kingston SSDNow 40GB Boot Drive

Part Number	Capacity and Features	MSRP (U.S. only)
SNV125-S2/40GB	40GB 2.5" SATA SSD (stand-alone drive)	$ 115.00
SNV125-S2BD/40GB	40GB 2.5" SATA SSD (desktop bundle)	$ 130.00

My thoughts:

Many people are going to argue that a 40GB drive just isn't going to be big enough, well to be honest when you are talking about a boot only drive then 40 GBs should be plenty. These drives are budget offerings meant only to hold your operating system
and key applications while all your data such as documents, music, files and photos would need to be placed on a secondary, more spacious HDD.

The new lower pricing of SSD's make them almost affordable enough to hit the mainstream and these are by far the cheapest drives I've seen however the downside I see here is the rather slow 40MB/sec. sequential write speed. That's just under half the speed of most "budget" SSD's on the market now. So while the price seems right the performance might be lacking.

Source: Kingston