Conclusion

As a memory manufacturer with a a long history of retail experience, Kingston appears to have a different strategy for their solid state drive products. By bundling it with a USB enclosure, Kingston has taken the solid state drive out of the realm of the hardware enthusiast and made it accessible to the general user.

Not every user is technically-savvy enough to install their own hardware, even if it's something as simple as a solid state drive. However, everyone knows how to use a USB drive. Thanks to the inclusion of the USB enclosure, the user doesn't even have to install the drive in his desktop or notebook to use it. Whether this strategy pays off for Kingston though remains to be seen.

As a second-generation model, the new Kingston SSDNow V+ SSD is a pretty polished product and it shows. Kingston used a nice cast metal case with a rough finish, giving it a really solid feel. Even the USB enclosure is well-made. We have no complaints as far as build quality is concerned. In fact, this is about as complete a package as you can ever find. Everything you need is in the box - from 3.5" brackets to all the necessary cables and screws.

Other than the nice accessories, the second-generation Kingston SSDNow V+ also has many things going for it. Its performance, for one thing, is pretty good. It may not be using the fastest NAND flash chips in the market, but it still did very well in the benchmarks we ran. It was the second-fastest SSD in the High-End Disk WinMark 99 test, just behind the Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue SSD.

The only problem we had with its performance was in large, 512 KB random writes where its high throughput was only evident in the first few seconds. Thereafter, its throughput dropped very low. Fortunately, this problem was only restricted to large random writes. Its small random write performance was not affected, unlike some other solid state drives.

We must point out though that the degree of sustained writes we put these drives under is uncommon in everyday use. The usage pattern of solid state drives place a great emphasis on read speed, especially random read speed, and this is where the Kingston SSDNow V+ shines, delivering performance several times faster than desktop hard disk drives.

Overall, the second-generation 64 GB Kingston SSDNow V+ is well-made solid state drive with pretty good performance characteristics. Plus, if you get the upgrade kit, it comes with a nice USB enclosure and everything you need to install the drive in a desktop PC. There is even an excellent 3 year warranty to boot. If you are looking for an affordable solid state drive upgrade, this is it!

To find the lowest price for Kingston SSDNow V+ solid state drives, click here!

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