Kingston 40GB V Series Boot Drive SSD Review

PCMark Vantage

PCMark Vantage is the first objective hardware performance benchmark for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista. PCMark Vantage is perfectly suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista PC from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops to dedicated workstations and hi-end gaming rigs. Regardless of whether the benchmarker is an artist or an IT Professional, PCMark Vantage shows the user where their system soars or falls flat, and how to get the most performance possible out of their hardware. The PCMark Vantage benchmark was run in 64-bit mode for the results shown below.

Benchmark Results: The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive had an overall score of 25,101 and the individual test results can be seen in the image above. These are very solid performance numbers!

Comparison Chart Results: The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive had great individual test scores, but the overall score seemed a little low. We are not sure why the individual test scores beat many of the other drives that have a higher overall score unless the capacity of the drive is taken into consideration in the overall score. The Kingston press release for this drive states they scored 13,883 in the Vantage Advanced HDD Suite. This score greatly differs from ours and when we contacted Kingston about this conflict in scores they said this:

“We conditioned the drive to get that number. Otherwise we got some crazy scores. We wanted to get a score from a drive that was broken in and not brand new, to give users a more realistic perspective.” – Kingston

Our response to that is if the drive had TRIM support you don’t have to ‘condition’ the drive to make it well used!