BANGALORE – An SSD (Solid State Drive) for those who simply must have it all — that is the Kingston SSDNow V+ Series 512GB drive with a part number of SNVP325-S2/512GB. It is super-fast, has all the benefits of an SSD and offers data capacity to rival that of mainstream HDDs sold today. The package we received was a “Performance Upgrade Kit” which includes quite a substantial set of accessories to help migrate a system over to the SSD. This kit includes mounting brackets (for those fitting this SSD into a desktop cabinet’s 3.5 inch bay), SATA and power cables, USB casing and connector cable for using the drive externally, and a CD. This CD contains PDF versions of the drive’s Installation Guide and a hard drive cloning software.

The data storage capacity on offer immediately marks it out as a product for enthusiasts willing to pay, and organizational use including servers. From that point of view at least, this 512GB SSD is something to aspire for; and is proof that SSD can indeed touch the capacities of mainstream HDDs yet be commercially viable to manufacture and to buy. Seeing that this product is available is heart-warming by itself, because one can finally say that an SSD is not just for the OS alone. Half-a-Terabyte of capacity means sufficient space for the OS, applications and data files — at least a basic working set for those dealing with large files, like architects and video editors. When you stop feeling the need to continue using magnetic HDDs alongside to store user data and can accommodate all relevant files on an SSD — that is when you fully see the positive impact on performance. Read on to find out the good and the bad about this drive. You can view the full Specifications, Performance details and product photos at the original URL of this review.

That an SSD can improve system performance is established knowledge — see our comparison of SSD versus HDD to see proof of the difference in numbers. One of the big bottlenecks remaining in PC hardware today is the hard disk. The fastest processor can only wait while requested data is read or written to a hard disk with spinning magnetic platters. With their fast response times and read/write speeds, SSDs do make a huge difference to the speed of applications that frequently access the hard disk or have to load a number of files, since SSDs are essentially memory chips after all. We have reviewed other Solid State Drives from Kingston before this 512GB drive, see the V-Series 128GB drive and the V+ Series 64GB drive. They all use multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash technology, a SATA-2 (3Gbps) internal data cable interface and a 2.5-inch form factor similar to how laptop hard disks look. This 512GB SSD supports the “TRIM” command to stem loss of performance over the lifespan of the drive.

As expected, it can withstand small shocks, is silent and does not heat up in operation, which is good for HTPCs and high-end desktops/laptops. In comparison with today’s mainstream HDDs that consume at least 5 Watts on average, this SSD is rated to use far lower – 2.6W while active and 0.15W while idle. We run synthetic benchmarks and real world tests using the fastest PC components, to remove most bottlenecks that hold back performance. Read speeds averaged a consistent 227 MB/s — right across the drive, without a dip in the speed graph. Write speeds averaged a consistent 165.3 MB/s with a CPU utilization of 1.5 percent. Random read/write access times averaged 0.13 and 0.30 ms. In comparison, average desktop drives average 75 MB/s read, 60 MB/s write, and 12 milli-seconds random access time.

Real world write speed while copying a single large file of 6.42 GB onto the SSD stood at 151.72 MB/s. Copying multiple smaller files (800 files totaling up to 6.36 GB) onto the SSD was almost the same speed, at 148.8 MB/s. Copying multiple small files from one partition to another, was at 43.92 MB/s. The reverse, copying files from this SSD onto our reference hard drive was child’s play since the SSD supplied data at 194 MB/s and the limitation was our HDD’s write speed. This SSD obtained 29,363 points in the PC Mark 05 HDD Suite index.

Just about every performance figure mentioned above is exclamation-worthy. After using it for a week as his primary drive, this reviewer was quite sad to have to return to his normal (and super slow in comparison) spinning magnetic hard disk drive. But as with any product, the SSDNow V+ 512GB SSD has its negatives too. Firstly, writing a number of tiny files or making a small edits to a lot of files can bog down most SSDs so far, including this one — at such times we saw its speed going down to just 20 MB/s (one-eighth of the normal speed). Secondly, an SSD can perform differently when used with different drive controllers. When used with a motherboard based on Intel’s H57 chipset, this drive was 25 percent slower than when used with motherboards based on the Intel X58/P55/P45 chipsets despite using comparable processors. Thirdly, the manufacturer still uses the decimal system to calculate capacity, so the user only sees 476.94 GB of formatted capacity (which the OS calculates using the binary system). Fourthly, you cannot just walk into a store and purchase it. In India this product is rare enough that you first have to place your order with a dealer, to have him import a piece for you and then wait for a month to have it delivered.

Other than the issues above, this drive is praise-worthy. We could not penalize this drive’s rating much for the price, considering that it is specifically targeted at an extremely niche audience and also comes with helpful accessories. Kingston offers a limited warranty of 3 years on this drive.

Bottom Line:

Just the sort of solid state drive that a lot of us were waiting for! The Kingston SNVP325-S2/512GB is an awesome drive at an awe-inspiring price. It battles the old guard (magnetic HDDs with spinning platters) and comes out the winner without ever breaking into a sweat. Also, the capacity offered by this SSD finally sounds like something closer to that offered by mainstream HDDs.

PCW RATING: 92/100 (SUPERIOR)