The SSD Improv: Intel & Indilinx get TRIM, Kingston Brings Intel Down to $115
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 17, 2009 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Kingston Delivers the First Good Sub-$100 SSD (after Rebate)
I’m not sure what sort of sweetheart deal Intel inked with Kingston, but it’s paying off. Other than Hitachi, Kingston is the only company allowed to use Intel’s controllers in their SSDs. And today, it gets even more interesting. The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is a 34nm X25-M G2 with only 40GB of MLC NAND Flash on it.
You read that right, Kingston gets to make a 40GB X25-M G2 under its own brand.
Kingston wants this to be specifically used for your OS and applications, where the speedy launch performance of an SSD is most useful. You’d keep your games, data and other large files on a separate hard drive. Why 40GB? To keep costs down of course. The Kingston drive goes on sale starting November 9th. The MSRP of the drive will be $115 ($130 with a 2.5” to 3.5” drive adapter), Kingston is offering a rebate through Newegg that will apparently drop the price to $84.99.
Kingston’s goal was to hit the sub-$100 price point and they did it, sort of. I’m not a big fan of mail-in rebates, and it remains to be seen if Newegg can keep the drive in stock at those prices, but the intention is good.
Only 5 devices means the Intel controller works in 5-channel mode, instead of 10-channel like the X25-M G2
While the drive uses an Intel 34nm X25-M controller and 34nm flash, it doesn’t have the latest firmware from Intel, which means it doesn’t support TRIM. Since it’s technically not an Intel drive you can’t update it using the firmware I linked to earlier. The drive will most likely eventually get TRIM support, just not now. Unfortunately it doesn't even work with Intel's SSD Toolbox, again, because it's technically a Kingston drive.
With only half the NAND flash of an 80GB X25-M (only five NAND devices on board), its sequential write speeds are cut in half - Kingston rates the drive at 40MB/s. Random performance suffers a bit, but sequential write performance sees the biggest hit.
If you've already got a large hard drive for games/data and don't have that many apps installed, the Kingston 40GB SSD is a perfect way to move to an SSD affordably.
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EasterEEL - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Once the Intel firmware is updated to v1.4 with trim support does Windows 7 start using trim? i.e I have already installed Windows 7 before dong the firmware update.Does ghosting an image back to the SSD have any impact on trim??
magreen - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
That Kingston for $85 is looking tempting for sprucing up a circa-2004 laptop of mine that I use daily. But the laptop is ide. I know of others in the same boat.Have you heard of anyone producing an inexpensive quality ssd for ide? The Kingston seems like the perfect candidate since it's anyways not as fast as the regular Intels.
Zoomer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Make sure that the drive interfaces match. If it's from 2004, it might still be PATA. I'd imagine this is SATA only.That said, it'll be interesting to see if soldering more flash chips on = upgrade in space. Shouldn't be too hard to find the flash chips (2 * Kingstons < Intel), but I'll need to find a good soldering jock.
magreen - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Ummmm... maybe I wasn't making myself clear.I wasn't referring to upgrading the drive's capacity.
I was referring to Kingston producing a PATA drive that would work with my PATA laptop. I know PATA doesn't work with SATA. (I loosely referred to PATA as IDE, which people often do...)
thanx
IMFTbestFab - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
You can't upgrade capacity like this. The drive has a maximum LBA associated with it, presumably set at the factory.Eeqmcsq - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Another great SSD article, Anand. Found a problem: Page 3, "Wipe When You Can’t TRIM", when you said "I went into a deep explanation of the relationship between free space and the performance of some SSDs here.", it sounds like there should be a link to a previously written article, but there is no link.ekbond - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Any thoughts on TRIM support in OS X?The download page for Intel's SSD utility specifies that it's OS independent, while the user guide says Windows is required.
Apart from formatting the drive, are there any other ways to restore performance (via TRIM or otherwise) currently available to OS X users?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
OS X doesn't have TRIM support yet unfortunately. I'm trying to get Apple to at least acknowledge that they will be supporting the feature but haven't had any luck yet. I haven't tried some of the erase options in Disk Utility to see if they do the equivalent of a secure erase. I'll try barking up that tree shortly.Take care,
Anand
chizow - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Newegg will just gouge the crap out of prices regardless. $100-130 will be more like $150-180. Remember when you said Intel would be dropping SSD prices with the G2 to $230 and $450 for the 80g and 160g respectively?http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...scriptio...
They were sub $250 for about 12 hours total since Newegg got them in stock 2 months ago after the initial "recall".
strikeback03 - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - link
I picked up my 80GB G2 a couple weeks ago from Newegg for $239 shipped, for the retail boxed one; the deal also included a Icy Dock 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and a ThermalTake Element S case for $30 with a $30 MIR.