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The SSDNow V300 comes in an attractive red, black and white box. Along with a picture of the drive, the front advertises many of its key features including its 120GB capacity, rated speeds, SandForce controller and three year warranty. The back of the box provides a bit more information as well as pictures of the box's contents.
The desktop upgrade kit that Kingston sent us for this review includes a number of accessories. Along with the V300 SSD you'll find a 3.5" adapter bracket with screws, SATA data and power cables, an installation video on DVD and a CD containing hard drive cloning software.
Physical Features:
While a bit heavier than other SSDs, the SSDNow V300 is very well constructed. The outer casing is made entirely out of metal and is covered by a rough, matte black finish. The top of the drive also has a large, red and black sticker advertising its capacity as well as the fact that it is part of Kingston's SSDNow V300 series.
Like Kingston's V+200, KC100 and HyperX series SSDs, the V300 uses SandForce's SF-2281 controller chip. The SF-2281 can be found in a number of other SSDs including the ADATA XPG SX900, Corsair Force Series, OWC Mercury 6G, OCZ Vertex 3, Patriot Pyro SE, Silicon Power S70 and the SanDisk Extreme.
For the 120GB V300, Kingston opted to use Toshiba's 19nm 8GB MLC Toggle Mode NAND flash chips. Looking at the pictures above, you can see that there are eight of these chips on either side of the PCB. If you do the math, you'll see that this equals 128GB and not the 120GB of storage the drive advertises. The SandForce controller uses this extra 7% (8GB) to maximize read and write performance and extend the endurance and overall reliability of the drive.
