After SSDs overcame the psychological barrier and moved from business class to the budget segment, many users, following the advertisement, rushed to purchase a high-tech device for their computer. In the media, there are many owner reviews regarding the advantages and disadvantages of solid state drives, and, as statistics show, the Kingston V300 drive deserves the most positive features.
In this article, the reader is given the opportunity to get acquainted with the sales leader, find out its modifications and characteristics. Reviews and reviews will help a potential buyer not only make a choice, but also decide on the earliest possible purchase of a new device that can significantly increase the performance of the entire system.
Decent brand
No company in the world can boast of a huge number of patents and innovations in the production of solid-state drives (Flash, DDR, NAND), except for the manufacturer Kingston. Technologists of the enterprise probably know a lot about the manufacture of storage media. It is this fact that encourages many potential buyers to give preference to a well-known brand.
After the manufacturer released the Kingston SSDNow V300 product, the company's credibility in the world market has only been established. Many manufacturers of SSDs have even begun to adapt to the flagship device (we are talking about reducing the volume indicator by rounding to the nearest zero).
"V" means vendetta
To provide their solid state devices with installation tools and software was also invented in Kingston walls. True, the manufacturer introduced a certain system to ensure the kit. So, all budget devices of an inexpensive class receive funds for installation and installation, and more expensive drives are delivered in OEM form factor. This is done to reduce the cost of expensive hard drives in the world market.
Kingston V300 120GB SSD hard drive can be installed not only in a laptop. The drive comes with special slides for mounting in a 3.5-inch bay of the system unit, a SATA cable and an adapter for connecting power. For the complete happiness of the user, the box with the hard drive lacks a set of screws for attaching the hard drive to the slide, and those, in turn, to the system unit basket.
The inner world of Winchester
The manufacturer strongly does not recommend opening a solid-state drive, at least if it detects torn seals on the screws, warranty loss cannot be avoided. However, to conduct a review, to ensure the honesty of the manufacturer, the enthusiasts took a risk. In a metal-plastic box there are a printed circuit board, controllers and memory modules. The data chip for the Kingston SSDNow V300 series is manufactured at the well-known chip factory - SandForce. And this applies to all modifications of the series (60, 120 and 240 gigabytes).
An advanced modification of HyperX FURY uses the Toshiba controller, which demonstrates more efficient performance than the V series. In the process of reviewing, disassembling the cases of other market representatives, one feature was revealed - different brands had the same memory controllers.
Declared Specifications
The Kingston V300 SSD has a 2.5-inch form factor and is designed to use the SATA III interface. At the hardware level, compatibility with SATA II is supported, but the data transfer rate is limited by the bandwidth of the legacy interface. The theoretical maximum data rate is 6 Gb / s (768 megabytes per second). Read speed and write speed for the SATA III interface has an average of 450 megabytes per second.
The power consumption of the carrier is 1.5-2 watts per hour and depends on the activity of the hard drive. The average life expectancy of Kingston V300 is 1 million hours. The operating temperature of the storage and operating environment should not exceed 65 degrees Celsius. There are no special requirements in terms of vibration to the solid state drive, because it does not have rotating components.
Pitfalls for users
It is the technical data of the Kingston V300 SSD that many computer owners question. Having acquired a high-tech device on the market and installed it in a personal computer or laptop, users rush to test for read and write speeds. However, the experimental results are not as rosy as the manufacturer promised. But the fault is, as a rule, the obsolete owner’s computer.
- SATA interface. All the declared characteristics of the drive belong to the third revision of the technology, respectively, the speed of the drive directly depends on the throughput of the interface.
- AHCI mode. Modern motherboards are able to detect the Kingston V300 Series and enable the appropriate mode of operation. On older devices, the user must do this manually (in the BIOS), if such a function exists at all.
- Low RAM. It makes no sense to put an SSD-drive, while having 2 GB of memory on the bor. The work of applications in multitasking will be inhibited by the work of RAM.
About mobile platforms
The purchase of a Kingston V300 120Gb hard drive is required, first of all, for those who have a malfunctioning magnetic hard drive on a laptop. At least most IT professionals are strongly advised to take this step. If you approach the issue from an economic point of view, then in the price category up to 3500 rubles, the buyer’s choice is small: 120 GB SSD or 1 TB HDD. It is logical to assume that many buyers will be outraged, because the volume of both drives is 8 times different from each other. However, there are other, no less interesting distinguishing features:
- Data transfer rate. Compared to an HDD that runs at 5400 rpm (laptop standard), the Kingston V300 is 14 times faster.
- Resistance to blows. The laptop is not a stationary device, and its constant movement negatively affects the magnetic disk, destroying it with vibrations from the inside.
- A light weight. Although 80 grams versus 300 g is not very noticeable to many users, however, this is still an advantage.
Installation difficulties
A lot of instructions on transferring a working operating system to a Kingston V300 120Gb SSD will certainly help owners solve problems with installing a hard drive. However, professionals recommend not to stoop to the backup level, but to start working with the device from scratch. Any operating system (we are talking about Microsoft Windows products) is able to determine the type of media and create a specific partition table for it with the correct placement of system files.
Tests conducted by enthusiasts in independent laboratories prove the effectiveness of installing the system on an SSD drive from scratch. No Windows migration software could recognize the controller and create the correct partition table. Not to mention the correct disk crashes and the transfer of system files.
Performance indicators
Any owner of a powerful gaming computer can get decent data as a result of testing, but what about users who purchased Kingston V300 SSDs for completely old platforms? The performance of the solid-state drive in this case will depend entirely on the characteristics of all components of the computer. First of all, operability depends on the speed of work and the amount of RAM. The second criterion in drive performance is processor power.
Fans of games that use the old model of the video adapter will not be left aside. The Kingston V300 drive is able to increase performance in resource-intensive dynamic toys by 20% and higher (it all depends on the modification of the video card and processor). In any case, performance indicators can be seen not only at the level of numbers in programs, but also with your own eyes in working applications and games.
Finally
When it comes to replacing a hard disk with a solid state drive, many potential buyers try to hide behind unsubstantiated arguments that this is a very expensive device with a small amount of memory. After all, it is more logical to purchase 1 TB than 120 GB of capacity. That's just no one can justify for what purpose he has such a resource, because 99% of users use all multimedia content (music and movies) online without downloading to their computer.
But when it comes to speed and reliability of data storage, the arguments are all in favor of the Kingston V300 hard drive. The review of the device and its technical characteristics once again confirm the fact that the era of hard magnetic drives has come to an end. It's time to invest in high-tech devices, for which the future lies.