Forget the moving parts. A solid-state drive is a drool-worthy option for those looking to upgrade a hard drive. Unfortunately, it’s also an expensive option — sometimes.
Kingston Digital (which is actually part of Kingston Technology Company, Inc.) just started shipping an affordable SSD option, known as the SSDNow V300. Starting at $126, the V300 is absolutely affordable, but packs in all of the goodies you’d expect in an SSD.
As part of the SSDNow V Series, the V300 is a nice little upgrade for those looking to boost up an existing desktop or notebook PC setup. It’s a noticeable upgrade, too, because it’s 10 times faster than a 7200RPM hard-disk drive and also has an LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor (FSP). It’s also optimized for 19nm NAND Flash memory, promising read and write speeds of up to 450MB/s.
“LSI worked together with Kingston to deliver a customized high-performing solid-state drive solution for their cost-effective SSDNow V Series,” says Kent Smith, senior director of product marketing at Flash Components Division, LSI. “Our award-winning SF-2281 Client FSPs provide Kingston’s customers with enterprise-class features and an enhanced everyday computing user experience, especially for first time SSD users.”
Because it has no moving parts, an SSD is certainly a more solid. It’s also shockproof and can withstand drops and bumps, if that’s a concern. It’s hard to beat that price, but Kingston promises to deliver performance as well.
“The SSDNow V300 is the best cost-efficient upgrade for users who want their existing systems to perform faster,” says Ariel Perez, SSD business manager at Kingston. “They will experience faster boot up and shutdown times, and will also see much better system performance when multiple applications are open.”
The compact V300 comes in 60GB ($126), 120GB ($194), and 240GB ($270) storage capacities. It’s available now as a stand-alone drive or as part of an upgrade kit. The latter includes cloning software and a few other accessories for adding to a desktop or notebook setup.
