Kingston SSDNow V100 SV100S2/256GZ 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Comment:
this drive was great whilst it lasted it only lasted a couple of weeks b4 it died, kingston has released a firmware update for these drives now but it doesnt enable after the drive has already failed :( Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Buyer , We have found a technical challenge with our SSDNow V100 which could result in drive failure. Although we have observed this challenge in only a modest percentage of drives, Kingston strongly recommends that a new firmware update D110225a be applied to all V100 drives to protect against achievable failure. Please open attached hyperlink for upgrade directions. Thank you NEW Firmware - D110225aOLD Firmware - D100811a http://www.kingston.com/support/ssdnow/v100_firmware.aspExternal Hyperlink(s): http://www.|

Comment:
Rapid and straightforward on the laptop powerJust before the install, laptop battery life was around 2h 13 min with WD 7200RPM drive.After the install, laptop battery life was extended to 7h 40 min!While I didn't see important improvement in commence-up time, it "was" a rapidly drive. Died inside 3 weeks!Returned to Newegg for replacement. Will update the assessment with the replacement unit.I am hoping that it was an anomaly. Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer , We have discovered a technical concern with our SSDNow V100 which could result in drive failure. Even though we have observed this concern in only a small percentage of drives, Kingston strongly recommends that a new firmware update D110225a be applied to all V100 drives to stop possible failure. Please open attached link for upgrade instructions. NEW Firmware - D110225aOLD Firmware - D100811a http://www.kingston.com/support/ssdnow/v100_firmware.aspExternal Link(s): http://www|

Comment:
Nicely-packaged, rugged caseIncredibly quick, (as advertised) Some of these May well NOT apply to this version, as I got a bundle meant to be installed in a laptop. It included a two.5" external enclosure that is meant to hold your old drive even though you use the bundled cloning software (on CD) to clone to your new SSD, installed in your laptop.- USB cable is really short, too short to attach a desktop machine- Drive wouldn't function on a number of of my USB ports, possibly due to a power problem. (I have many USB adapters; only 1 of them worked with this drive).- CD software is only usable for cloning. If you want to use the drive as an external drive you'll need to have 3rd party backup software program. (Most of you have this already or you wouldn't even be thinking of an SSD, so this doesn't figure much into my rating)- The side screw holes are too modest for the screws that are applied to attach the drive to the carriage used by my thinkpat T60 internal drive. I thought that possibly the threadlock on the screws may be the problem, but the screws fit just fine in the holes UNDER the drive I ended up not using any screws at all. The drive is NOT formatted, not partitioned, and also is not recognized as a drive when you plug it in to Windows. You need to use Windows Disk Management to mark the drive usable just before you can even partition it or format it. I don't expect a new bare drive to be formatted or partitioned, but I did anticipate it to be observed as a valid drive. No major dealSummary: Regardless of all me negative findings, I genuinely do like the drive. It is amazingly quick. I suppose that may well be accurate of all SSDs, and this is my initial. But now that I have it working, I have to give it at least a four out of 5