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Published in Reviews

Kingston SSDNOW E 32GB tested

by on13 April 2009

Index



TestBed

Motherboard: MSI P45D3 Platinum ( Provided by: MSI );
Processor: Intel Core 2 QX9770 Extreme edition at 3.6GHz ( Provided by: Intel );
Memory: Corsair Dominator 12800 7-7-7-24 ( Provided by: Corsair);
HDD: WD VelociRaptor 300G 10,000RPM ( Provided by: SmoothCreation );
Driver: Nvidia_182.50_geforce_winvista_64bit_english_whql.exe
          Nvidia_182.50_geforce_winvista_32bit_english_whql.exe
         
Vista 32 SP1
Vista 64 SP1


We tested Kingston’s E series SSD drive with a couple of popular storage-media testing tools, but we often experienced varying results, so we’ll show you the values we’ve got the most times.

The following tests were done by connecting Kingston and Intel SSD device to Vista 32 SP1 system installed on WD VelociRaptor 300G 10,000RPM Hard Disk Drive. MSI’s P45D3 motherboard features Intel’s ICH10R chipset controller, and note that it too can sometimes affect results. However, our tests were done on the same motherboard, so they’re easily comparable.

HDTune

HDTune reports the following results:

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We see that Kingston’s E series with SLC memory reads a bit faster than Intel’s X25-M series with MLC memory, as you can see from the results below. This is not unexpected, as we’ve mentioned earlier that the difference between Kingston’s E and M series is in write speeds and not read speeds. Maximum read peak on Kingston SSDNOW E 32GB was 226MB/s, which is a bit lower than the listed maximum of 250GB/s.

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Just to put things in perspective, we compared it to WD’s 320GB hard disk and OCZ’s 120GB APEX drive we’ve tested not long ago:

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As you can see, Kingston’s E series SSDNOW offers four times the read speeds of a standard HD, and we noticed that it beats OCZ’s drive in minimum read speeds, which of course significantly benefits the results.


ATTO Disk Benchmark

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ATTO Disk Benchmark also reports impressive scores, as the SSDNOW reaches maximum read and write speeds of 170MB/s and 250MB/s respectively.

Intel’s disk, whose results are below, in many tests didn’t manage to exceed 200MB/s read speeds, unlike Kingston’s E 32GB disk which simply excels. While Intel’s X25-M couldn’t reach its maximum write speeds, Kingston exceeds its 170MB/s limit. Still, note that these are only synthetic tests.  

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OCZ 120GB Apex drive achieves its maximum read speed of 221 MB/s, whereas the maximum read and write speeds of standard hard drive was about 53MB/s.

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PCVantage test

For this test, we installed Vista 64 OS on our Kingston and Intel disks, but since we kept getting different results we had to take these tests out for a spin for quite a couple of times. The tables show Kingston’s results followed by Intel’s.

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The highest advantage we noticed was in Windows Media Center test, where Kingston ends up being three times better, but the difference is well evident in system startup times and multimedia editing tests.

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Conclusion

SSDs are rapidly gaining on popularity, but their price is still not quite right, despite the fact that it has been getting better the last couple of years. Kingston’s E series SSDNOW 32GB costs $446, whereas the 64GB version will set you back 848$. Kingston also offers its M series, which is different from the E series only in write speeds. The M series could probably be compared to Intel’s X25-M results, but note that the 80GB version costs $412.

We must admit that this device is simply flawless and it leaves the competition in a huge cloud of dust, but we still find it hard to believe that users will find it to be appealing with such high pricing. On the other hand, Kingston didn’t intend for it to be popular with desktop users, as this device is aimed and server environments.

With that in mind, and the fact that this device is quiet, durable, and an excellent performer, we could say that this device’s golden times are yet to come. Add to that the fact that Kingston also offers support for those who choose this disk, and it’s a no brainer – we dub the Kingston SSDNOW E 32GB a Fudzilla Recommended piece of kit.

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Last modified on 15 April 2009
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