Introduction

Over the last couple of months we discussed a lot about how next generation SSDs will get a speed boost compared to models that were considered speed kings just a month ago. At the same time we also touched on large capacity models that will hit store, but for the most part the speed has been the main story. That changes today.

Kingston Technology was very quick to jump on the solid state bandwagon. Their first offerings were more or less rebadged Intel products, but at the time Kingston chose the fastest drive we had ever seen and that strategy worked out well. Later Kingston chose to take what they learned from the Intel offerings and went to work on their own configurations. Right at the start Kingston showed promise as they finally were able to tame the Jmicron controller allowing for shudder free operation and then moving onto Samsung controllers in the V and V+ Series.

At CES we had a chance to sit down with Kingston and learned about a new Toshiba controller that was set to power the new Second Generation V+ Series of products. Toshiba invented NAND Flash and they have the experience to not only make the controller, but also the flash that runs seamlessly with it.

For over a year we heard about massive capacity solid state drives, but most of these have been concocted from two smaller drives sandwiched together with a low cost miniature RAID controller. The PhotoFast V5 is a good example and while it did show amazing speed, its short comings in price were more than most could handle. Even today the 512GB V5 costs 1999.00 USD at DVNation; quite a bit more than what anyone I know wants to spend on a SSD. Even if they did plop down the dough, using two Indilinx Barefoot drives in RAID will kill all support for Windows 7 TRIM and this will eventually leave users needing to disassemble the drive to perform a wipe function.

Fast forward to today, the next generation is here and while the price is still above what most would consider, the hassle has been eliminated. Let's take a look at the Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Solid State Drive.