Kingston v300

What's up everyone? I've been eyeing up a 120gb kingston v300 ssd to replace the ssd currently in my laptop. A thinkpad t410. The current ssd is a 250 gb Samsung 840 evo. I only bought that brand and size ssd because at the time, I got it for dirt cheap. $90 at microcenter. That said, I think the Evo ssd would better serve as a game drive in my main gaming pc.

My question about the v300 is durability more so than speed. I know the v300 is not the tip top, but my t410 is only sata2 anyway. So sata 3 speeds would be lost on it. Anyone have experience with these ssds? Ive seen mixed reviews. Microcenter has the v300 for $60 and also has a PNY xlr8 120gb for $70. What would you guys recommend?

I have two friends with the v300. Going on a year now for each of them without issue. I put together both systems and they felt snappy.

I think something happened with that model at some point in the last year, though. Quality declined or a firmware update messed some stuff up. Google v300 issues and I'm sure you'll turn up something. If it is a firmware thing, that can be corrected. They are pretty cheap.

Kingston changed the nand and the drive went from a reasonable performance budget sata 3 ssd to the kind of speeds you would expect from an early first gen ssd. Still better than a mechanical drive, but not worth buying when there are much faster drives in the same price range.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

ninjacore said:

I have two friends with the v300. Going on a year now for each of them without issue. I put together both systems and they felt snappy.

I think something happened with that model at some point in the last year, though. Quality declined or a firmware update messed some stuff up. Google v300 issues and I'm sure you'll turn up something. If it is a firmware thing, that can be corrected. They are pretty cheap.

Click to expand...

So as long as I don't update the firmware, I should have a decent ssd for a few years? This is only going to be running a linux mint/windows 7 dual boot

ninjacore said:

I have two friends with the v300. Going on a year now for each of them without issue. I put together both systems and they felt snappy.

I think something happened with that model at some point in the last year, though. Quality declined or a firmware update messed some stuff up. Google v300 issues and I'm sure you'll turn up something. If it is a firmware thing, that can be corrected. They are pretty cheap.

Click to expand...

Supertrucker said:

Kingston changed the nand and the drive went from a reasonable performance budget sata 3 ssd to the kind of speeds you would expect from an early first gen ssd. Still better than a mechanical drive, but not worth buying when there are much faster drives in the same price range.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

Click to expand...

I know it's a slower ssd at sata 3 speeds, but as I said, my thinkpad t410 only sports a sata 2 connection. Would the v300 be a viable choice? I know there are better out there, but I'm looking primarily at price: performance on the says 2 platform here. I'd get a smaller 60 or 30gb ssd if I could, but most of them are the same price if not more than a 120gb equivalent.

Read the anandrech article. You don't even need to worry about saturating sata 1 with that drive if it's still using the slow nand. 170/85 read and write is appalling.

Only you can decide if it's worth buying. Personally, I wouldn't, even for a sata2 based laptop.

Supertrucker said:

Read the anandrech article. You don't even need to worry about saturating sata 1 with that drive if it's still using the slow nand. 170/85 read and write is appalling.

Only you can decide if it's worth buying. Personally, I wouldn't, even for a sata2 based laptop.

Click to expand...

Wow not even sata1?! Nevermind. I'll pay $10 more and get the pny xlr8. Great reviews. Claims of 400mb/s are true according to reviewers. Thanks alot for the help.