# Generation comparison/Review: Kingston 64GB SSDNow V+ Performance Upgrade Kit



## The Sorcerer (Nov 9, 2010)

As I've said on the previous Kingston review:
_"We might/should see newer versions of V-series drives coming up  with a better performance, hopefully with a good balance between  sequential /random read and write tests."_

  ......And see you shall.
*img442.imageshack.us/img442/703/dsc02459ho.jpg​ 
Kingston India sent me a SSDNow V+ series 64 gigs Performance upgrade  kit. Comes with the (almost) same bells and whistles but at the end of  the day what matters is what can she do- give a goo stable sequential  read/write and random read/write scores or will it be "Geronimo" jump  between the tests we seen earlier?
*img94.imageshack.us/img94/6263/dsc02494uy.th.jpg​This  is a generation 2 SSDNow V+ series drive but their PR was kind enough  to provide a 1st generation drive as well for comparison test.

*Advertised specs, package and closer look:*
*img51.imageshack.us/img51/9967/advertisedspecs.jpg​  Judging by the advertised specs alone, it has better sequential  read but more than 2 times the write speed compared to the V series  reviewed earlier. Power consumption is advertised to be low on active  and load (most likely the SNVP325-S2B/64GB will be coming in desktop and  laptop upgrade kits) with double the life expectancy.  This is probably  meant to be their mainstream SSD drive. Kingston's new teeth so far  looks good- on paper.
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With the usual  connectors and the Kingston-labelled  Acronis back-up disk, Kingston gave a plastic external enclosure with  the  really small USB cable. 
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You need to be a little bit careful while sliding  in/out the SSD drive from the external drive's connectors but other than  that there's no issue at all. There's always room for improvements, one  of them being that the build quality need to be better. 
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After opening it up,  all the NAND flash chip, controller and cache is on the other side of the casing protected by a really thick thermal pad.  After removing the PCB, the drives is armed Toshiba T6UG1XG controller that supports TRIM but not NCQ, next to there's a Micron 128MB cache. The rest are Toshiba TH58NVG7D7EBAK0 flash NAND chips. 



*Test setup and benchmarks*
*img440.imageshack.us/img440/9949/testsetup.jpg​ *AA SSD Benchmark:*[Sequential/4k/4k-64thrd- Read and Write​     Author's Note:


Spoiler



The benefits of the benchmark are:
* Good precision of results
* Simplicity of use
* Optimized for SSD
* Screenshot-function
* It's freeware


 *img202.imageshack.us/img202/3600/asssdnowread.jpg​ *img94.imageshack.us/img94/2397/asssdnowwrite.jpg​ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------​ *Atto Benchmark v2.41:* Sequential Read and write with 8MB transfer.​     Author's Note:


Spoiler



The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.


 *img94.imageshack.us/img94/5598/atto1stgen.th.jpg
1st Gen: SNV225-S2/64GB​ *img441.imageshack.us/img441/5481/attoa.th.jpg​ 2nd Gen: SNVP325-S2/64GB​ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------​ *HD Tune pro 4.60 Benchmark:* File benchmark (File length: 64MB), 4KB aligned random access read, sequential read benchmark.
         Author's Note:


Spoiler



*HD tune pro* is a hard disk utility with many functions. It can be used to measure the drive's performance, scan for errors, check the health status (S.M.A.R.T.), securely erase all data and much more.
*What's new/B]

28th August 2010: HD Tune Pro 4.60 released.

Changes:


Added temperature statistics
Improved support for SSD
Improved access time resolution
Health
added support for more SSDs
 
Random access
maximum access time is shown
added 4 KB align option
 
Extra tests
added random seek 4 KB test
 
         Added 4 KB align option.*


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*img440.imageshack.us/img440/651/hdtunefilebc1stgen.th.jpg*img258.imageshack.us/img258/4994/hdtunerandomaccess1stge.th.jpg
1st Gen: SNV225-S2/64GB
*img560.imageshack.us/img560/4304/hdtunefile.th.jpg*img513.imageshack.us/img513/6854/hdtunerandomaccess.th.jpg
2nd Gen: SNVP325-S2/64GB
*img574.imageshack.us/img574/5792/hdtuneproreadperformanc.jpg​ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------​ HD Tach 3.0.4.0: Quick bench​                 Author's Note:


Spoiler



HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.


 *img830.imageshack.us/img830/8049/hdtach.th.jpg​ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------​ Crystal Disk mark 3.0 64-bit: Sequential/512K/4K/4K QD32 Read and write test​                 Author's Note:


Spoiler



Key Features
* Measure sequential reads/writes speed





Spoiler



[* Measure random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) reads/writes speed
* Select test data (Random, 0Fill, 1Fill)
* Theme support
* Multi-Language support
Important Notice
* "MB/s" means 1,000,000byte/sec.


 *img831.imageshack.us/img831/2820/crystaldiskbenchmarkwri.th.jpg
                *img253.imageshack.us/img253/7670/crystaldiskbenchmarkrea.th.jpg​ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------​ SIS Sandra 2010 Physical disk benchmark:Read performance​                 Author's Note:


Spoiler



SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.


 *img517.imageshack.us/img517/5126/sandraphysical1stgen.th.jpg
1st Gen: SNV225-S2/64GB
*img109.imageshack.us/img109/3558/sandraread.th.jpg
2nd Gen: SNVP325-S2/64GB
------------------------------------------------------------------------------​ In 3 tests (ATTO, HD tune's file benchmark and Crystal disk) it shows that it can around 200-230MB per second sequential read and 146-150 MB  per second in sequential write.  Sequential read/write tests shows a difference between the 1st and 2nd gen drive.  4K read performance could have been better. 



Conclusion:
*img227.imageshack.us/img227/7466/diskinfog.th.jpg​                                      Crystal Disk info detects SNVP 325-S2/64GB as SNV325-S2/64GB.  This drive came as "Performance upgrade kit" so P stands for Performance I guess but if you are buying a SNV325-64GB SSD drive rather than the kit, wouldn't be suprised if both are the same drives. If you have checked the HD Tach benchmark above, that too detects the drive as  SNV325-S2/64GB.
*img255.imageshack.us/img255/6681/ssdpitch.th.jpg​                                      Kingston V+ series is pitched as "Ideal for corporate environments" in their website (India and U.S.) but the second generation under this series is more like a second generation of the v series drive- and I say that for a good reason.  

*img3.imageshack.us/img3/3194/dsc02505gi.th.jpg​                                        The first generation v+ SSD drive (now discontinued) came with a Samsung YK40 controller that supports NCQ and TRIM (you need to update the firmware to version VBM19C1Q to enable TRIM).  The second generation drive comes with the same Toshiba T6UG1XG controller from V series I reviewed earlier which doesn't come with any NCQ  support.  NCQ is really important as its meant for  random input-output performance and implementing this as a norm as this is happening for a pretty long  time in mechanical hard drives. Moreover its rather strange to see a second generation drive meant for business and corporate use with no NCQ support while the first generation does.    

Furthermore, Kingston needs to make an improvement on their website. The first gen SSD drive has VBM1801Q firmware with the TRIM option disabled.  I went to their website ( specifically- this link) to flash it with VBM19C1Q firmware to enable TRIM but it didn't come with any firmware update link whatsoever. They really need to have their own proprietary firmware updater like the Samsung  SSDs with the same controller or provide the proper instructions to make a self-boot USB drive and download link for the firmware. It leaves a bad impression when companies don't support discontinued drives,  specially which are not obsolete and within their warranty period.

it seems like a decent drive if it had NCQ support. No proper conclusion can be made as Kingston India recently informed that they don't have 64GB kits in retail, rather 80GB and 160GB kits are available for which they didn't provide any price for that as well. I've contacted my usual dealer but they don't stock anything from Kingston.​ *​*
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## rac (Nov 12, 2010)

I don't think NCQ will definetly improve the random read/write speed of SSD. It should depend on how the controller work in data writing. V+ gen 2 has no NCQ support, but it's still faster than the old one which has NCQ. 

I think the main reason that V+ is for business and coporate use should be the OS independent garbage collection function. It helps to maintain SSD's high performance even in no-TRIM-support OS environment - since lots of companies still used XP or Vista...
And the controller of V+ and V should be different... according to the information from google.. maybe you can check again

About the firmware upgrade provided by Samsung, I also asked Kingston why they stop to provide. The answer is that it won't help much in enhancing speed and it may cause serious crash in some cases.


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## ico (Nov 12, 2010)

well, NCQ is important. You could check out the review on Tomshardware too. All the SSDs with NCQ have performed well.

A missing feature is a missing feature unless reflected in price compared to the competitors.

And you are from Kingston, Taiwan.


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