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The V30 comes packaged in a brightly colored, retail box. The front advertises many of the drive's key features including its 120GB capacity, SATA III interface and 2.5-inch form factor. There is also a small, plastic window which lets you look inside the box and see what the V30 looks like. The back of the box provides a bit more information, including the drive's specifications and a longer list of features. Inside, you'll find the SSD, a 3.5" adapter bracket, mounting screws and a small installation guide.
Physical Features:
The V30 looks very similar to Silicon Power's other 2.5" SSDs. The drive's outer casing is made entirely out of metal and is covered by a textured, matte black finish. The top of the drive also has a large, red and orange sticker advertising its capacity as well as the fact that it is part of Silicon Power's V30 series.
As I mentioned earlier, the V30 uses SandForce's SF-2281 controller chip. The SF-2281 can be found in a number of other SSD's including the ADATA S511, Corsair Force Series 3, OWC Mercury 6G, Kingston HyperX, OCZ Vertex 3 and Patriot Pyro SE.
While earlier versions of the V30 featured synchronous NAND from Intel, the drive Silicon Power sent us for this review came equipped with Micron's 8GB 25nm 29F64G08CBAAA asynchronous 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 performance and extend the endurance and overall reliability of the drive.
