Kingston SSDNow V+100 256GB Solid State Drive Review

Introduction

One of the biggest surprises we learned at CES 2011 was that Kingston had joined Team SandForce for the SF-2000 Series of products. After CES we learned from Digitimes that Kingston was also moving to acquire a larger stake of controller manufacturer JMicron at the same time. Kingston has been gaining attention for their solid state drive products for the last two years and slowly gaining market share. The recent maneuvers will allow Kingston to continue building upon their successes and become an even larger player in the global solid state drive market.

A majority of Kingston's SSD success to date has come from Kingston's V and V+ Series of products. These two series were very successful for the company and had a long reign in the active lineup. At the end of 2010 Kingston announced the successors to the V and V+ lineup and the new 100 products were born.

Today we are looking at the Kingston V+100. The new V+100 uses a 32nm Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller that is very close to the 43nm controller from the original V+. The new die size has really helped power draw, down to 3.6 watts from 4.2 watts. In addition to the die shrink, the new V+100 has been updated with better firmware that significantly improves internal drive cleanup (Garbage Collection).

Before we get too deep into all of the technical specifications, let's move over to the specifications page and look at the total package. After that we will get to the performance testing.