Kingston 40GB SSDNow review
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted December 2nd 2009 12:31PM
posted December 2nd 2009 12:31PM
Installation
PreparationWe added this drive to an existing PC, but our current system partition was an honest-to-goodness 40GB and this drive is actually 37GB, so we had to start out by shrinking it. The upgrade kit version includes imaging software, but not resizing software, so we followed the advice of our friends at Download Squad and used the free EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition software to resize it. Once that was over, we were only using about 21GB of our system drive, so this was as easy as installing the software and letting it do its magic and rebooting. But if you are using more space than this on your system drive, you'll have to rearrange some things to get the used space to under 37GB before you can resize it. We know you already have an external drive around for backups (right?) so we suggest you back everything (seriously, always backup everything before messing with your rig!) up until there is enough free space, then go on to the next step.
Physical installation
The new SSD is of the 2.5-inch form factor variety, but includes adapters to make it fit into any 3.5-inch drive bay. Our Dell XPS 420 had an extra unused floppy drive bay and unused SATA connection, so we set the drive in the bay without mounting it for review purposes; if we were to keep the drive, we'd definitely want it securely mounted. On the Dell motherboard the SATA ports are off by default, so we had to go into the BIOS and enable it. Finally, we booted the system and confirmed that it showed up in Computer Manager. Windows will try to initialize the drive, and we let it even though we planned to image over it later.
Copying existing data to the SSD
Assuming your system drive is 37GB or smaller, you need to image it over to the new SSD. If you bought the upgrade kit you can just boot from the included Acronis Drive Image boot disc and make your copy, otherwise you'll have to find your own imaging software. There are plenty of free options here, so many in fact that we won't go into great detail. In the case of the included Acronis disk, we couldn't get it to make a partition to partition image. So we just used Drive Image boot disc to backup our system partition to an image file on our 1TB internal disk. Then we used it again to restore the image to our new SSD. The last thing we had to do was to go into the BIOS and tell the system to boot from the SSD drive instead and we were off to the races.
Performance
We know this is getting to be a cliché but SSD technology brings new life to just about any computer. Now we'll leave the serious benchmarking to the experts, but beyond just going by the seat of our pants impressions, we did time a few common tasks to see the measurable improvements. While everything we tried was at least a little faster, the most noticeable was the time it took for our PC to sleep, which was 13 seconds instead of 48, with the time from login until the desktop appearing coming in second with an 18 second improvement. The time to launch new programs was greatly improved, but we're talking a second or two here, unless we were out of RAM. Want some brutal honesty? If you're thinking of buying RAM or an SSD, we'd recommend the SSD. We say that because page files are a fact of life in modern operating systems no matter how much RAM you have, and accessing a page file from an SSD drive is markedly faster. This is a difficult thing to benchmark, but believe us when we tell you that there is no mistaking the perceivable improvement when the page file gets used. One thing to consider about a smaller SSD like this is that it means you won't be able to leverage your new disk speed on most file copies or loading large media files for playback or editing. The SSD will help these tasks somewhat because your hard disk with your documents and media will be relieved of its OS, page file and application loading duties, but we're not sure how perceivable that is.Media Center PC performance
Media Center in Windows 7 is already much faster than it was in Vista, but we were excited to see if we'd notice an additional speed boost from an SSD drive. We tried a few different configurations -- such as setting the SSD to just be the Live TV buffer -- but honestly we really didn't notice any improvements. It seems that Media Center is loaded into memory anyways, so after the initial launch -- which evidently doesn't require much disk I/O itself -- things felt pretty much the same. Now the only time we've ever noticed any slow downs in Media Center (that were disk related, anyways) is when we recording five HD shows at once, but at 40GB, we could only record about 5 hours of material to this drive. For kicks, we copied a 30 minute HD show to it and scanned it for commercials with ShowAnalyzer, and it finished in 4 minutes instead of 8; unfortunately, the time it would take to copy the content to the SSD to be scanned would all but nullify the savings.
Conclusion
At less than $100, the Kingston 40GB SSD is a superb value and is certainly a solid system upgrade. If you're building a new system and can spare the extra cash, don't even think about it -- you won't regret having an SSD at the helm. The fact is there just aren't that many pieces of hardware that can offer this type of performance boost -- albeit only for certain tasks -- at this price. With all of that being said, at 40GB this isn't going to be the only hard drive in your PC, but if you do have room in your case and enough wiggle room in your budget for two drives, picking this one up seems like a no-brainer from here.
what's their logo all about?
1989 Ad agency develops “Improve Your Memory” ad that features hands installing memory into a partial head.
1990 First Kingston logo is developed. Using the ad for inspiration, it features a line drawing of modules going into an opened head.
1992 An artist named Fraser is commissioned to create a simple yet powerful version of the head that also reflects technology. He creates three or four comps; the one with a single head surrounded by computer equipment is chosen for the logo.
1993 – present His forehead has been modified and the computer equipment in the background removed but the Kingston Redhead, or “Rex,” as he is known to his friends, hasn’t changed much over the years. People everywhere recognize this icon as the symbol of the world’s independent memory leader.
Source: http://www.kingston.com/company/default.asp
@Wwhat Interesting, for some reason I always assumed it was supposed to be based on an Easter Island head (although for what purpose I couldn't figure out). The actual history of it makes more sense (it didn't occur to me that the head had its top cut off).
@Wwhat so it isn't a SSD manufactured in Egypt.
Yeah I thought it some easter island link too, that's why I looked it up, because it was a curious thing.
@(Unverified) it's meaning is "use your 'headz', don't buy us" LOLz. At least me, personally, I've only had trouble with Kingston memories... SanDisk and OCZ FTW!
You're not going to beat Kingston's price without losing either speed or build quality. SSDs are still not a real option for the average consumer when the average 1TB HDD is under $100.
@John Stathakis
What about just installing your OS and Software on a small SSD? Then putting the larger files like photos, music and videos on a HDD. I think that's a pretty viable option.
@John Stathakis $100 extra to get the SSD as well as the 1TB hard drive is certainly an option though and that $100 of spending will get the average user a HELL of a lot more performance loading windows then launching outlook and firefox than spending $200 more on a CPU would.
@John Stathakis
Did you guys even read the article? WTH?
thats quite a nice drive, considering it's so cheap.. may have to put one in my parents sluggish laptop as the boot drive :3
@Skate It Dont Spray It
is it possible to replace the hard disk in a notebook with one of these? I don't need a ton of disk space so it may be perfect
@(Unverified) It should be, because laptops usually have 2.5" hard drives.
@Skate It Dont Spray It Kingston actually sell this as part of a "notebook" kit as well as the "desktop" kit here. The difference is the desktop kit has the brackets to fit it into a 3.5" enclosure, as here. The notebook kit comes with an external 2.5" USB enclosure, so you can pop the SSD into your notebook, and stick the old HDD into the external enclosure for a free USB drive into the bargain. Which is a darn good deal, IMO.
Thanks guys! I've been reading piecemeal reviews/benchmarks all over on this drive, but I was waiting for someone to really break it down. I'm sooo tempted to go buy one and rock the optibay dual drive in my macbook.
But I think I'm going to wait until spring when there will probably be a next gen, or at least bump in capacity for the same price. 40GB is still just too small for me. Although I do remember years ago, upgrading my family PC to a 40GB HDD and it was an 'amazing' amount of storage. Oh how a few years change everything.
So, 2x drivers in Raid0 or a SSD drive, as the main OS drive?
@Peavey
My pair of old raptors in Raid0 have faster read write times than this but the access time on SSD's are amazing.
40GB is a bit teeny though. Its fine as a boot disc on OSX or linux installs but vista/7 x64 installs can go well past 20GB. Fine if you want media on another drive but I quite like having my games on my fast boot drives as well as applications. A pair of these though, definitely worth a though.
40GB is simply too small.
I can't use it as my primary HDD because it's can't hold the OS and all my files and I can't use it as my backup HDD because its can't hold all the files on my primary OS.
500GB at a minnimum required
@TheCow5
It's for when you have 2 HDD's. This would be the OS drive.
Thanks for this, guys. I've always had an appreciation for reviews that had these sort of hands-on, specialized improvements included. Reminds me of the old days of TechTV.
Problem is that you need to leave plenty of empty space on an SSD meaning you are left with very little space, and if you have your swap file on it isn't that getting a bit dicey too? Although I guess you could use a machine with an overabundance of RAM and disable the pagefile altogether.
Still, I hear it makes windows very snappy so that certainly sounds like win.
My OS and Program partitions are 75gb each, this is a bit conservative on space.
Also, putting two normal drives in raid0 (which is a feature on most intel chipset mobos) helps the experience without sacrificing storage capacity and/or price. Sure, the access times are nowhere near SSDs, but it makes the gains even more marginal. You can make the same argument for SSDs I guess, but I'm personally waiting until my next mobo purchase with sata6 to try that.
@Akhen
Yeah, but you double the chance of storage failure and data loss/system down time. Speed/reliability should be just as important in measuring storage tech as storage space(especially since the HDD is the largest data throughput bottleneck on a system when funneling information to the cpu and also it is the most likely to cause the system to break).
Because of the drone and heat I have my HD's spin down after a while, and the spinning up when I need them is a real pest due to the lag, so that is nice too about SSD's, no need to spin down/up and completely silent.
I would not put a pagefile on current technology SSD's though, I don't think that's a good idea, I don't think they'll last long that way and they will get slower by the minute.
But as I said in another post, you can turn the pagefile off completely when you have enough RAM I'm told, so then that objection is covered.
Or make a tiny pagefile in a RAM disk if windows insists on one.
@nate345
With current technology, the chance of harddisk failture is low. Doubling a chance doesn't makes more realistic. Take lottery for example.
@Wwhat no, with wear leveling and cells being able to be erased 10,000 times it's no longer an issue - Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=6) estimated with his usage it would take 980ish years to wear out - but the NAND cells loose their charge in about 10 years - which is plenty. You have any HDD's that lasted that long? Didn't think so.
Any idea on the longevity of these drives?
Engadget, please... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid
@CosmicSquirt
I think everyone is being taught the sensationalistic style these days. Stay tuned for daring rescue story in the 10 pm news (oh, we are not telling you that we will play it at 10:29 pm)
... stay tuned
... stay tuned
... and a 10 year old pulled a cat out of a 6 foot tall "tree"
... awww, so cute
@CosmicSquirt
It's a blog, not a news si-- oh wait, nevermind, the redesign was supposed to change that.
@CosmicSquirt
Thanks, but this isn't a news story it is a product review.
@CosmicSquirt The inverted pyramid style of reporting is obsolete now that they aren't literally cutting material off the bottom of a story with scissors.
"EASEUS Partition Mater Home Edition"
as in TA-mater?
Is something like this feasible/sensible with an ExpressCard/34 slot SSD? I'm thinking about a 48GB one for my MacBook Pro
40 GB is too small for many, but it's enough for some. Truth is, this Kingston is a budget SSD solution for people who'd like to min-max their boxes for the highest performance/cost ratio. SSD boosts performance like nothing on the market today, so it's a worthwhile investment. This is just the rock-bottom, cheapest thing you can do.
If you are serious about using a SSD for a typical system drive without pulling your hair out trying to finagle retarded installers from unzipping itself twice on the system temp directory, grab an OCZ Agility 120 or an Intel X25M (especially now that the firmware upgrade is out!). SSDs are expensive when you compare these drives to the disk-spinning ones, but the performance gains via SSD is the best bang-per-buck compared to any other upgrade for a modern system.
Of course if you don't care about performance, then you don't need to be concerned with SSDs. They're still expensive.
@omo
This model is actually the intel x25-m g2 halved..
They have Intel controllers in them so there shouldn't be any performance issues
Also, since they are basically the same, expect the TRIM firmware for this one as well..
@omo 40GB is perfect. Most servers have their c:\OS partition 36 gigs and then apps on other arrays. For a home Array 1 Raid 0 2x40GB would be sweeeeettttttt. Who needs redundancy on their OS drive at home? Performance FTW!
@(Unverified) There's a performance difference between this and the 80gb X25M (and the 80gb with the 160gb), same reasons why the OCZ Agility 120 is faster than its smaller kins. That aside, the point is in a home desktop though, 40GB for a system drive is really cutting it close. It doesn't offer enough flexibility IMO, and really is for people who don't mind working around those disk limitations. On a GB-per-dollar level the Kingston 40GB is slightly superior than the X25M, so it's an option to buy more than one of these.
Seems like the best use of this would be having it as a page file drive, or hibernation drive.
I think 40gb is about enough, You can have your main OS and a good chunk your heavy system programs boot off it, you don't have to use it for every single program you have on your system,
I would put W7, adobe, and winrar, thats about it, all games and other programs on another drive.
One of the more notable issues I've found with running an SSD is the computer's ability to handle simultaneous requests with little to no system slowdown. Example: running an anti-virus/malware scanner while transferring a file and using the OS. Before, that'd grind the whole deal to a halt for at least 30 minutes - now it'll rip through a file check in 5 minutes or so. And even then, I don't see any slowdown, so I can keep using the system.
It's also nice to have the system boot and be ready to go. Once I see the desktop, everything is up and usable within a second, vs. before having to wait for individual applications load one-by-one in the taskbar.
You didnt mention if ATA-TRIM was supported? Thats whats most people are waiting for to jump onto the SSD bandwagon.
@nhasian
My understanding is that TRIM is not supported. I'm hoping that Kingston will adapt the new Intel firmware to these drives ASAP.
@nhasian According to this article, it does not support TRIM, but it does have the Intel controller, so it's possible it might be added when Intel adds TRIM support again (it already added support, then the firmware caused issues and had to be recalled)
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=818
@TheAngryIntern
Intel just pushed out a new update today:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/intel-ssd-firmware-02hd-brings-back-trim-support-sans-bugs/
the drive isn't less than a hundred dollars. i see it for around 120-130. the previous article listed it being 85 with a rebate via newegg, but that's not listed or apparently available anymore. all of this means that this certainly isn't under a hundred dollars.
@jecks
It is $101 here http://www.consumerdepot.com/productstd.asp?id=10622509&referer=google
This drive's performance hit compared to the 80GB intel SSD is too much. spend the extra $120 for the 80GB. You'll thank yourself later.
@DanH
The price for the 80GB X-25M drives is back up to $300 on newegg. I think it's best to wait for prices to come down. We're still in the early adopter phase.
@Jeff Kibuule
$248 at Amazon, showing in stock on December 5th. I just ordered one. :)