Kingston’s SSDNow V+200: More Affordable SandForce

Last year Kingston introduced its HyperX line of SF-2281 based SSDs. HyperX marked the first time SandForce and Kingston ever worked together but the relationship continued. Kingston quietly introduced the SSDNow KC100, another SF-2281 based solution aimed at the corporate client. SandForce worked with Kingston to deliver a custom firmware that exposed more SMART attributes on the KC100. That drive also comes with a 5-year warranty and uses Intel's 25nm NAND with 5K p/e cycles. 

Today Kingston announced its SSDNow V+200. The V-series drives have traditionally occupied the value space (relying on JMicron controllers) while the V+ drives were supposed to be a bit higher performance, but still price competitive. Kingston's V+ drives used Toshiba controllers in the past, however Toshiba is a bit late to the game in delivering a 6Gbps solution forcing Kingston to look elsewhere. The V+200 is SF-2281 based however it uses Intel's 25nm asynchronous NAND with only 3K p/e cycles. As I've mentioned before, even at 3K program/erase cycles no desktop user should be able to wear out their NAND. SandForce's realtime compression does a great job of ensuring NAND longevity as well. The move to asynchronous NAND does impact performance, making the V+200 a lot like OCZ's Agility 3. For an understanding of async vs. sync NAND I'd suggest looking at our Agility 3 review. 

The MSRPs of the V+200 line are quite high, although I'm guessing street prices will be a lot lower (based on this table you can get a HyperX 120GB for less than a 120GB V+200). NAND prices vary so much from week to week that the advantage of going with async vs. sync NAND isn't always all that great. I suspect the next major dip in NAND pricing will either come from using TLC or newer 20nm MLC NAND.