Kingston SSDNow 40GB V-series SSD review. Desktop and netbook performance

Final thoughts

Kingston's decision to release a relatively cheap but decent-performing SSD, to perform as a boot drive, means it's needed to adopt some different underlying technology than used on any previous SSDNow model.

Grouping SSD speed and value in a single sentence sounds oxymoronic, yet Kingston has been able to hit a sub-£2-per-GB retail metric on a 40GB drive by harnessing Intel's latest-generation storage tech.

Based on 34nm MLC-based NAND, lowering costs, the Kingston SSDNow V 40GB produces premium-quality speeds in all facets other than sequential writing. Indeed, the random small-file performance is excellent.

Fast boot times and smooth performance make Windows 7 feel lush on a desktop machine. What's more, testing in a netbook environment, if storage capacity isn't of primary concern, shows it to better than a high-quality mechanical drive in a number of ways.

SSDs make sense once the pricing drops below £100. The Kingston SSDNow V 40GB, set to etail at around £70 when officially released on November 9th, is a good bet as a boot drive in a high-performance PC, or, as we've shown, as primary storage in a netbook.

Finishing on a note of caution, the underlying technology isn't perfect; there's no Trim command for storage 'housekeeping' and Intel's had to pull updates on its own drives. If you can live with the ongoing refinement of SSDs, Kingston's is worthy of consideration.

HEXUS Rating

We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.

The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore the SSD is evaluated with respect to our 'mid-range components' criteria, where value plays a larger part in the overall score.

HEXUS Awards

Kingston SSDNow V 40GB

HEXUS Where2Buy

The drive will be released on November 9th. The article shall be updated with relevant where-to-buy links.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

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I am pleasantly surprised by these results. Depending on how things go I could well pick up one of these next summer for a boot drive in the other PC :)

Waiting on TRIM support. Otherwise, this will likely be the next boot drive in my system, and I'll likely get it ready to do a fresh install of Win7 Pro. (Main workstation is still on the RC)

Decision made, I'm definitely getting one when they launch. Thanks Hexus! :) My current HDD gets 5.5 in WEI and it is a noticeable problem, it takes a few seconds to launch apps and boot time is well over a minute.

No TRIM support is a shame, but hopefully it'll appear in a firmware update somewhere down the line. If not then simple competition will mean in 12 months time we'll have faster, higher capacity drives with TRIM support at this price. I'll just upgrade to one of those.

It should get TRIM support, I reckon it might be worth waiting for the X25-X from Intel though, which is identical to this but will probably have faster/better support than for a third party clone.

Then again it might also have a higher price. I have got an X25-M for my desktop and really want something cheaper for my laptop for weight/power/speed reasons, I just have this nagging feeling that 40GB wont be enough for me, W7+Office Enterprise must be a fair whack, hibernate file, various other bits and bobs, and enough free as so not to affect the speed. I reckon 64 is really the minimum I could use in the laptop, for a desktop i guess its a bit easier as you have the additional drives (and I appreciate this is how this drive is being marketed)

Anyway, I'm suprised intel allowed this to be released before their own version, strange one.

No Trim support affects write speed only so it should still be perfectly adequate as an OS drive in a desktop PC. The lack of Trim isn't a big drawback for me anyway.