SSD’s have been there for a while but their use has been limited to people who are computer hardware enthusiasts. When SSD’s were first introduced for the general consumers, they were priced ridiculously and owning a SSD was not possible for everyone.
With the recent advancement in storage technology, SSD’s have become relatively affordable today, however the price per GB still remains higher than most HDD’s. But there’s a catch here, as SSD’s are ten times faster than traditional HDD’s, the premium price tag is clearly justified by the performance boost you are going to enjoy. We have with us a Kingston UV100 60GB SSD and today i am going to review the same and find out how different is an SSD from a HDD.
SSD Packaging
The Kingston UV 100 60GB SSD comes tightly packed in a tamper proof plastic box which contains the SSD. Online reviews suggest that the SSD comes with a mounting bracket but the review unit which i received didn’t include one. Apart from that, the packaging also includes a starter guide which explains in details about installing and using the SSD. I took a few photographs of the packaging and as you can see below, there’s nothing fancy about the packaging.
SSD Specification
The Kingston UV100 60GB SSD comprises of 19mm Nand storage units which are controlled by a SATA3 interface that is capable of providing a data transfer rate of upto 6GBps. The SSD has a storage capacity of 60GB and boasts about read and write speeds upto 425 MB/s. However these are just the advertised specs, in real life the review unit which i received had a storage capacity of 56GB ( this is reduced further by 10-15GB when you install the OS ) and the read and write speeds varied. The UV100 60GB makes use of the normal 2.5-inch form factor and has a thickness of 7mm. It’s both compatible with SATA 2 and SATA 3, however the later is recommended for the best performance.
SATA stands for Serial ATA which is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives. The major difference between SATA 3 and SATA 2 is the former protocol can provide a maximum data transfer rate of 6GBps while the later is limited to a Maximum data transfer rate of 3GBps.
Unlike HDD’s which can be connected via both SATA 2 and SATA 3 connectors, SSD’s on the other hand need to be connected to a SATA 3 port, otherwise you won’t be able to get read and write speeds anywhere closer to what’s advertised. The following are the detailed specifications of the Kingston UV100 series of SSD’s.
Specifications:
- Form factor : 2.5″
- Interface : SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0 (3Gb/s)
- Capacities : 60GB
- Sequential Read/Write : SATA Rev. 3.0 – 60GB – up to: 425 / 425MB/s
- Maximum 4k Read/Write : 60GB – up to 65,000/26,000 IOPS
- Random 4k Read/Write : 60GB – up to: 45,000/7,500 IOPS
- PCMARK® Vantage HDD Suite Score : 55,000
- Total Bytes Written (TBW) : 60GB – 32TB
- Power consumption : 0.08 W Idle / 0.108 W Avg / 1.025 W (MAX) Read / 2.8 W (MAX) Write
- Storage temperature : -40°C~85°C
- Operating temperature : 0°C~70°C
- Dimensions : 100.3mm x 69.9mm x 7mm
- Weight : 77.5g
- Vibration operating : 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)
- Vibration non-operating : 20G Peak (10–2000Hz)
- MTBF : 1 million hours
Note: If you are going to use the SSD as your primary drive, you will have to change the SATA mode from IDE to AHCI in your PC’s BIOS settings before installing Windows on it, otherwise the SSD won’t be able achieve read and write speeds more than 200 MBps.
SSD Benchmarks
I ran several benchmarking tools such as Crystal disk, ATTO disk and AS SSD to benchmark the read and write speeds of the Kingston UV100 60GB SSD. Additionally i have also included the benchmarks of a 1TB Western Digital Black HDD in order to show you how the read and write speeds vary across an SSD and HDD.
The following are the specifications of the system which was used to test the Kingston UV 100 60GB SSD.
Test System:
- Processor: AMD Phenom X6 1050T @ 3.2 GHz
- Motherboard: MSI 890FXA – GD70
- RAM: 8GB Corsair 1600Mhz
- GPU: AMD Radeon 7950
- Operating System: Windows 8.1 Professional
Here are screenshots of some of the benchmarks.
CrystalDiskMark
In the Crystal Disk Mark benchmark, the Kingston UV 100 60 GB SSD scored a sequential read speed of 479 MBps and a write speed of 100 Mbps. Surprisingly, the read speed was 54 MBps above the advertised speed of 425 MBps. However the write speed was nowhere near the advertised speed.
AS SSD Benchmark
In the AS SSD benchmark, the Kingston UV100 60GB SSD scored an read speed of 474 MBps and write speed of 96 MBps.
ATTO Disk benchmark
ATTO benchmark is an tool used by manufacturers to benchmark their SSD’s and HDD’s. Based upon the results, the manufacturers decide the read and write speeds to be advertised on their storage devices. The Kingston UV100 60GB SSD scored a read speed of 530 MBps and a write speed of 470MBps. However these are just the advertised read and write speeds, in real life the read and write speeds provided by Crystal Disk Mark and AS SSD are much more accurate.
The Kingston UV 100 60GB SSD scored excellent sequential read speeds that is actually more than what’s advertised on the packaging. Unfortunately this was not the same in case of the write speeds, where the speeds barely crossed 100 MBps , whereas the packaging clearly states that the SSD is capable of providing read and write speeds up to 425 Mbps.
The good thing is, despite of all its flaws, the UV100 clearly beats the Western Digital Black 1TB HDD in terms of read speed by almost 350 MBps in all the above benchmarks. Also you should know that the Western Digital Black HDD is a top of the line consumer HDD and the benchmarks prove how incredibly fast SSD’s are from HDD’s.
Windows 8.1 Boot Time and Gaming Performance
One of the most major benefits of installing an SSD includes faster boot and shutdown time in all operating systems. The Kingston UV100 60GB SSD has fast read speeds and this can be easily proved by the time taken to boot into Windows 8.1. As expected, it only took approximately 15 seconds to boot into the Windows 8.1 desktop, however in case of the Western Digital Black 1TB HDD it took around 30 seconds.
For checking the gaming performance i installed Battlefield 4, which is one of the most hardware intensive games of today. With the game installed on the SSD, i did notice a improvement in game loading times and even the FPS were better. Unfortunately due to the limited space of the SSD, i couldn’t record a gameplay video.
Pricing and Warranty
The Kingston UV100 SSD’s are priced at Rs. 3,500 for the 60GB version and Rs. 4,600 for the 100GB version. The SSD’s are available via all major online retailers in India and are backed with a 2 year warranty from Kingston with free technical support.
Conclusion
The UV100 series of SSD’s are an entry level storage product from Kingston which are priced very attractively. While the SSD’s read speeds are impressive, the write speeds and the actual storage capacity on the other hand are a major deal breaker.
The read speeds of the SSD and its price are the only area where the Kingston UV100 60GB SSD lives up to my expectations. In all the benchmarks, the SSD was able to score an average of 470MBps+, which is more than what’s advertised on its packaging and specifications. However when it came to the write speeds, it fails to deliver anything more than 100MBps, whereas the advertised write speed for the UV 100 60GB is up to 435MBps.
As the Kingston UV 100 60GB SSD has blazing fast read speeds, it can serve as an excellent boot device and the windows boot test has already proved that. Finally, keeping in mind about all the major factors such as speed, price and actual storage space available, The Kingston UV100 60GB SSD is mostly suitable to be used as an primary boot device for installing the OS along with a few programs.
So if you intent to buy this SSD, make sure that your motherboard has SATA 3 connectors, otherwise you will have to invest in a new motherboard in order to get read and write speeds closer to what’s advertised. Last but not the least, thank you Kingston for providing us a review unit.
Pros
- Fast Read Speeds
- Affordable price
- 2 Year Warranty with free technical support
Cons
- Poor Write speeds
- Low storage space
