Intel's X25-V & Kingston's 30GB SSDNow V Series: Battle of the $125 SSDs
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 19, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
The story goes like this: Intel let Kingston build a value version of its X25-M G2 drives. This became the 40GB Kingston V Series Boot Drive. When Intel added TRIM support to the G2 drives, Kingston was told to wait. Kingston would get TRIM support when Intel launched its own 40GB version of the G2. Here’s where things get hairy. Intel and Kingston couldn’t work out terms for the TRIM enabled firmware on the V Series Boot Drives. Intel wanted too much money and Kingston wanted to keep the drive price below $100. The outcome? Kingston V Series Boot Drive owners never got official TRIM support and the product was dropped altogether.
This all took place a few months ago. Two things have happened since then. Intel has, as expected, launched its value SSD: the X25-V. This is basically the Kingston drive we reviewed last year, but with official TRIM support. In other words, it’s a X25-M G2 but with only half the channels populated with IMFT NAND. The X25-V is available only in a 40GB capacity (we’ll see an 80GB version based on 25nm NAND in Q4 2010). The drive is priced at $125 and available today. On a side note, Intel’s pricing shows that there wasn’t any room for Kingston to deliver a sub-$100 version of the X25-V.
The second thing to happen was that Kingston built another V Series Boot Drive, this time based on a Toshiba controller with 32GB of MLC NAND on board. The price? $124.99 for an upgrade kit. Kingston appears to be going head to head with Intel in the value SSD space. Ballsy. Update: Kingston has pointed out that despite the $124.99 MSRP, Newegg is currently selling the drive for $114.99 with an additional $30 mail in rebate that will drop the total price to $84.99 after rebate.
Meanwhile, OCZ recently announced its Onyx SSD based on a newer low cost Indilinx controller. The target price? Sub-$100. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait a little longer on it as the final firmware is still being ironed out. Instead, today’s comparison takes place exclusively at $125 and is between Intel and Kingston. Former bedmates, the two now have equally compelling entry-level SSD offerings.
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Taft12 - Saturday, March 20, 2010 - link
A few hundredths of a second - $1000 well spent!!!semo - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
wow am i seeing <2mb/s sequential write speed on those drives? it must be an error i'm pretty sure that SD cards can do better than thatsamspqr - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
there's a 4 on the other side of the axis: it's 41mb/sQChronoD - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
That is annoying...Hey Anand (or TWIMC)
Isn't there a way for your pretty graph program to move the text to right of the bar if there isn't enough room for the label to fit? It's really annoying when you can't read half of the results because the super long product names are compressing the graph...
icrf - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
Agreed, it is pretty annoying. What is used to generate these graphs? A third party tool or something in house? What language/what tool?Taft12 - Saturday, March 20, 2010 - link
I remember one of the other regular contributers mentioning that getting the graphs to look nice is not trivial, and I've had the same experience trying to accomplish the same.Of course, if the bar is so small you can't see the number, it doesn't really matter what the number is, the result is dismal.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
It's an automated system that unfortunately doesn't handle that case very well. We're launching the new site in a few weeks and we'll be updating the graph styles as well, so I'm going to try to get that fix in there :)Take care,
Anand
fless - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
You can change the location of those labels in swiff chart pro. Right click on the number then select single label. You're too lazy.samspqr - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
hisome time ago, 3dprofessor found that swapping a standard HDD for a WD velociraptor increased rendering performance by a sizeable 10%
http://www.3dprofessor.org/Reviews%20Folder%20Page...">http://www.3dprofessor.org/Reviews%20Folder%20Page...
in fact, I'm pretty sure in the core2 times they got much bigger improvements on a dual-socket board, but I can't find that review anymore
you also do rendering tests on your CPU reviews
could you test rendering performance of some standard 7200 drive, vs the velociraptor, vs a low-end SSD, vs a high end SSD? with your new gulftown, perhaps?
thanks
AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, March 20, 2010 - link
Anand stopped benchmarking SSDs in ways that pertain to real life long ago. http://tinyurl.com/ylflfao">http://tinyurl.com/ylflfao