CHEAP 128 SSD for Envy $125.00

Hey guys, just found this figured I'd share. Buy.com - Kingston 128GB SSDNow V Series SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive

Ahh Wrong Section! 2.0 To the rescue!?

 

LOL. Tada!

 

These drives do not have decent controllers. They're have mediocre performance. They're not that great compared to Sandforce/C300/intel SSDs.
Kingston SSDNow V Series 128GB SSD Review - The Kingston V Series SSD - Legit Reviews

 

lol mediocre comepare to what? A $500 ssd?

 

I have a kingston and my envy is coming with intel. I will post video of both soon. My kingston is very very fast.

 

Some of 120GB SSDs with Sandforce SF-1200s can be picked up for $200ish. $80 more for far better performance. Based on Newegg reviews, the Kingston SSD is only marginally better than a HDD. I suppose "you get what you pay for" is true.

 

Watch out, dont get Bigwood212 started, he is THE SSD guru.

 

marginally better than an hdd? you guys need to go in the ssd benchmark forum.

 

I've never met anyone who hasn't been amazed at the difference when they replace an HDD with an SSD, regardless of the class of SSD. At the price, this Kingston is a steal and they make a more than minimally sized SSD a "reality" for people on a tight budget. Yes, they are 50-60% slower than some of the best out there, but they are still some 5X faster than a fast HDD. Also as the linked article says, they're targeted at new, value seeking buyers - it's hard to justify spending $250+ on an SSD for a $500 and under notebook, but for $130, it's way more useful than upgrading to a faster computer. The average middle of the road notebook gets about a 40%-60% boost (from my personal experience) in PC Mark Vantage, which tests overall speed of combined components/functions of a computer. In fact, I would say to almost anyone looking to spend $400-$700 on a new laptop, spend $130 less and add this SSD. However, especially at the lower end, the $130 might be the difference between Core i3 and Core i5, or even between an AMD fusion/Atom-Ion and a Core i3; again, for most users, the lower end cpu with the SSD will serve them better and run pretty much everything faster, but for some apps (Photoshop?), the fastest cpu is important.

Deuce, did I get this right?

Oh, and, if read the linked article and think you're missing out on a lot by not getting the "notebook bundle" (sold with the V series SSD, but not the one on sale at buy.com) to image your old hard drive onto the SSD, you can get Norton Ghost for free to do the same thing as the Acronis software, though it seems that the "bundle" also includes a front end to make the imaging process that much easier for noobs - but they can get their help here .

 

yea what he said!

 

you guys are pretty much saying oh dont buy that because your ssd performance wont be as great as one for twice the price.

 

I order this Drive for my Envy on Friday. Even if I see a "marginal" improvement, there are other reasons for going with a SSD like power consumption, sound, and not worrying about the platters of the HDD bumping into each other if I drop my laptop.

 

Personally I would save up a bit more money, and wait for a good deal on a good quality SSD drive. The Kingston drive isn't that great sounding for a laptop (according to these posts - http://forum.notebookreview.com/notebook-tech-bargains/554551-kingston-v-series-ssd-128gb-2-5-sata-125-usd.html- The Kingston SSD will draw considerably more power than even a 7200rpm laptop drive) It seems very inefficient, and just plain shoddy; for $75 more you can get an equivalent sized drive, that has much much better power draw and performance

maybe you would have to wait a little bit to find the right deal on a good SSD, but it would be worth it in the end.

EDIT: for example I got a 120GB Patriot Inferno SSD (Sandforce 1200) for $215 (after tax) from Microcenter back in October, that was with a MIR though, but still -deals can be had.

 

Speaking of the quality/speed of different SSDs, I have two questions about the one that may be in the Envy 14 refurb I bought that should be arriving Tues:

1) What model is it likely to be - Samsung I know, but which?

2) Since it is pre-August 2010 (the date after which Radiances were no more, does that increase the chance that it has firmware that does NOT support TRIM?

3) Has there not been a firmware upgrade or other way so get the older Samsungs to support TRIM?

No big deal here; just made me realize I might have to return the sucker immediately upon receiving it!

 

heres my $80-90 kingston ssd in with my old dv2550se 2007 laptop. 1.5 core 2 duo no tweaks



heres my hdd

 

envy 14 drives are

160GB = Intel X-25M G2
256GB = Samsung MMDOE56G5MXP-0VB

they both support trim.

 

yeah, what he said.

 

Thank you. I know the Samsungs put in HPs (not just Envys) through around June were the older generation, and at the time, people on the DV8 thread were freaking out and there were many many calls and finally Samsung released new firmware that supported TRIM, as I've just learned tonight. Wasn't sure if my refurb might be stuck with a Gen 1 Samsung.

 

just thought I would post this in here also. My envy came today with no ssd. I put it up against my 2007 dv2550se 1.5ghz core duo with a KINGSTON 64gb SSD and the dv2550se is way faster.

YouTube - bigwood212's Channel

 

I completely agree. I picked up a cheap older SSD here in Japan (CFD Interceptor 128GB) and put it in my girlfriend's Asus UL20A. It gets about 190 sequential read and 100 write, and she has been amazed at the speed increase over her old 5400RPM drive. Even though her computer at work is new, she said she can't stand using it now that she's gotten used to the SSD. Her Asus is like a totally different computer, and even lower class SSDs can really give a positive boost to every day use.

 

Is this really true?

 

I got a Kingston 128 SSD in my Envy 14, and its night and day vs a regular HDD. Mind you I havent compared it to other SSD`s, just compared to my HDD. Ill be swaping out my optical drive and moving the 500GB HHD I have in there for media storage.

 

Power savings on an SSD is marginal, theres a few articles I would refer to on the subject, tomshardware.com has some good write ups. Really if you want an ssd the selling points should e fast boot up, fast install, fast data rates.

That aside, I'm a proud ssd owner. Why do I love it? I install windows on a regular basis, once every 6 months or so. I do this for a large number of reasons, but it used to take upwards of an hour or two to do, now takes a good 10-20 minutes of my time. (I should mention that I install off of a usb drive, using a dvd will keep this a long process).

 

Current batch of envy 14 256GB drives are OEM Micron/Crucial C300s with SATA2 as opposed to SATA3 interfaces.

 

yea but he has a scratch and dent refurb. People just recently started getting the micron 256gb.

 

as an aside. some of the samsung 256GB ones don't support trim for whatever reason. it also has a custom firmware (HP says hi) so you can't update it successfully (usually).

depends on your luck with the refurbs