Kingston 40GB V Series Boot Drive SSD Review
40GB Boot Drive Unboxing
Today, we will be looking at the Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive Desktop Bundle Kit (part number SNV125-S2BD/40GB). Kingston has added all the hardware and software necessary to replace your current desktop computer’s internal SATA hard drive thanks to the Kingston SSDNow Solid State Drive (SSD) Bundle Kit.
Kingston SSDNow 40GB V Series Boot Drive Offerings:
- Kingston SSDNow 40GB V Series SNV125-S2/40GB – $115.00
– stand-alone drive - Kingston SSDNow 40GB V Series SNV125-S2BD/40GB – $130.00
– desktop bundle
If you don’t need anything other than a bare drive Kingston also has a stand-alone sku available that is $15 less expensive.
Inside the cardboard box is another plastic container that holds all the components. Notice Kingston put a RedHead on the plastic housing.
The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB SATA 2.5 boot drive desktop bundle kit includes the SSDNow V Series drive, Serial ATA data cable, 4-pin Molex to Serial ATA power adapter cable, a drive mounting bracket w/screws for 2.5 to 3.5 conversion and a CD with some critically needed software on it.
The heart of the bundle is Acronis True Image HD software, an imaging program that copies the contents of one computer hard disk and loads those contents to another system drive; that will take you through the cloning process. This software allows you to move your Operating System and your personal data (including all settings, emails, etc.) from your current system hard drive to your new SSD. Once the Acronis True Image HD cloning process is complete and the data is successfully transferred to your SSD, your hard drive can then be used as a secondary drive for data storage with the included external SATA drive housing. The Acronis True Image software is valued at $46.99 on its own, so for an MSRP that is $15 higher the bundle seems like a good value if you need the software and mounting brackets. If you would like to know more about what exactly this software does please refer back to this article where we go in-depth on the software and how to use it.
The Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB SATA drive uses the 2.5″ form factor used in notebooks, so this drive will work in any notebook or desktop (with the adapter rails). The SSDNow V Series uses less power than traditional hard drives as it consumes just 0.15 Watt during active use and 0.06 Watt in a sleep state. This is good news for laptop and netbook users as you will see better battery life and desktop users will see less heat and more power savings.
Flipping the Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB SSD over you get a better look at the back of the drive. Notice that it has threaded mounting holes on both the bottom and sides to fit in various cases.
Here is a better look at the SATA II header and the SATA power connector. The SATA 2 storage interface is backwards-compatible with SATA 1. For maximum performance, Kingston recommends installing Vboot drive on a SATA 2 controller and enabling AHCI mode in the BIOS.
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