First Solid State Drive - Help

Hello, I'm Jewel with Kingston Technical Support and would like to add some clarification about the V300. There is a misconception about the firmware of the drive, the 506 firmware version is not faulty the "issue" everyone is talking about actually has to do with the type of NAND used in the drive. NAND is the memory storage chip(s) that are used in SSDs and other flash memory products. Kingston designed the V300 drive model with a varied build to balance performance and entry level pricing. This means the V300 may use different components from build to build depending on market availability. Starting around the same time the 506 firmware was released we began using Asynchronous NAND along side Synchronous NAND in different builds of the drive. Regardless of which NAND component is used in the drive or it's firmware version the V300 performs at it's advertise speeds of 450MB/s read and write in ATTO Benchmark or better. Since these types of NAND behave differently using them creates a sort of delta in performance, all drives meet our specifications while those with Synchornous NAND may surpass them. To better inform everyone, we have included additional benchmark results from AS SSD and Crystal Disk Mark on the V300's datasheet to show a "worst case scenario" of incompressible data rates on the Asynchronous version. We also have released a firmware update version 525 which adds support for enabling the ATA password and depending on which firmware version updated from it may resolve other minor bugs as seen in the release notes. The datasheet, firmware update, and other useful information about the V300 can be found here: http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/products?model=sv300s3 .

When it comes to our warranty, the V300 is covered for 3 years from the date of purchase. It is best to maintain your proof of purchase as that will be used to verify the warranty period. We offer support worldwide and unless in the Americas the drive would not typically be shipped back to the USA but to another one of our support centers. Should you need to send back the drive our Warranty Department will work with you.

For any further information about Kingston products, feel free to call us at 1-800-435-0640 (USA and Canada only) M - F 6am - 6pm PT and I or another available Technician will assist you. Please be sure to have the part or part information in question on hand when you call.

Thank you for selecting Kingston as your upgrade partner.

International Contact Information is available at the bottom of our Contact page: http://www.kingston.com/us/company/contacts

I would get the Samsung. Much better performance and 6 months is long enough to shake out any bugs in the drive.

Yogi