Kingston SSDNow V+ 200 120GB SATA III SSD (Upgrade Bundle Kit) Review

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL

Over the last little while, we have been assisting with beta testing new benchmark software called Anvil Storage Utilities which is an absolutely amazing SSD benchmarking utility.  Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and utilize in our benchmark testing.

This test is absolutely the most complete SSD test available today.  Even though the SSD test is done with highly compressible data, we can see the results dropped just a bit, however, the Response Time (or disk access) shows why an SSD is so quick out of the gate.  If we had a hard drive result with this same tests, you would see 9 seconds typically which is about 90 times slower than what we see here.  We can also see great low 4k random write aligned results of 79,ooo which is excellent.

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

• Windows Defender In Use
• Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
• Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
• Starting the Vista Operating System
• Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
• Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as XBox
• Cataloging a music library
• Starting applications

If you are new to testing and considering benchmark software, this is the best you can get because the program goes well beyond the results of simulated testing as we have already done. In comparing SATA 2.0 SSDs, we have reached the bandwidth limit and the performance of most new SATA 2 SSDs is as high as it can get with typical high sequential access speeds in the area of 280MB/s read and 270MB/s write.

We needed a way to differentiate these drives and to find a method that can actually put one drive above another and this is exactly what Vantage testing does. Its tests combined can provide an accurate comparison between drives and its tests individually can assist a smart shopper in finding the best SSD for their needs. Next to actual true to life testing which can take an insurmountable length of time, PCMark Vantage is the only program that can compare any SSD, side by side, regardless of SATA interface or controller in use.

KINGSTON SSDNOW V+200 PCMARK VANTAGE RESULTS

The SSDNow V+200 came out with a Total Point score of 64466 points and a high transfer speed of 406MB/s while testing in Windows Media Player.  This is actually the best score we have reached, to date, with a 120GB SSD using asynchronous NAND flash memory which may also be indicative of new SandForce firmware.

The following chart consists of all ‘new gen’ SATA 3 SSDs tested to date, regardless of controller or memory type within.  This result is based solely on the PCMark Vantage Total Point Score.