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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Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Thanks guys :)Take care,
Anand
jimhsu - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Since I've been wondering about the free space issue, will there be a test where a drive is benchmarked vs. the amount of free space available? My guess is that the graph will be an exponential decay with the "noticeable" regime at 20% free space. Anyone cares to do this (say, at 90%, 80% ... close to zero free space)?Crittias - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
So, without TRIM, is there anything else G1 owners can do? Can I manually wipe the drive and reinstall my OS every few months? If so, should I?mataichi - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I have the G1 and in Anand's previous SSD Anthology article he tells how to get back to 100% performance using HDDERASE.http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=35...">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=35...
This is total crap that Intel is not supporting the G1.
DanH - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Buy the G2, clone the G1 to it and sell the gen 1. Really. It is not a big loss of money to do it.lorax1284 - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link
Basically, you suggest we pass our problem on to someone else who is less informed. It's called "Ethics". Look into it.Just because Intel has none doesn't mean I'm going to abandon mine.
klil - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
The only option you, a G1 owner, have to make your drive's performance back to ~100% is to do a full format of the drive. I'm pretty sure it would have to be done very frequently, each time you write 80/160GB of data to the drive... nothing else you can do, sorry =(Intel's wipe ultility (SSD Toolbox) only works with the G2 (for use with Windows XP/Vista) and TRIM only works with the G2 as well (for use with Windows 7-to replace the Toolbox)... =(
Zoomer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
One can always try the Indillinx tool, after making a full backup, of course. Heck, 80GB would be less than two blu-rays.klil - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Another great article by the one and only Anand Shimpi, king of SSDsSo, basically Intel made a very stupid move by only allowing SSD Toolbox AND TRIM on G2 drives. I would like to know if its due to architectural changes (perhaps?), maybe you know it but can't reveal it to anyone... if I weer you i would edit out the part when you say the G3 are coming next year... or else Intel will kill you, they just lost a custumer for the G2 (me)
But would it make sense for them to release the SATA 6 G3 drives next year if their on-board ICH10 and MCH P55 does not support it? Maybe the P57 and X68 will? Who knows?
I'll still be waiting for those Gulftowns... =D
Bakkone - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Don't think its that much of a secret that we will se a new generation next year. We need a version that uses Sata3 (6Gb).