Kingston SSDNow V+100 vs. Samsung 470 Series 256 GB SSD Review

A Closer Look

Even though they both have the same 256 GB capacity, the Kingston and Samsung units differ greatly in most other respects. We will outline these differences below.

Figure 3: Kingston SSDNow V+100 256 GB

Kingston has decided to use a metal casing for this drive which makes it feel very solid. This adds significantly to the weight, though, making this unit heavier than most 2.5” mechanical hard drives.

Figure 4: Inside the Kingston SSDNow V+100 256 GB

All of the chips within the Kingston drive are located on one side of the board which sits on a large thermal pad to aid heat dissipation. Kingston has chosen to use eight 32 GB chips to make up the total capacity along with a 128 MB buffer. In the center of the board we find the Toshiba T6UG1XBG controller which is identical to the model used in Apple’s latest Macbook Air. This supports maximum read and write speeds of 230 MB/s and 180 MB/s, respectively.

Figure 5: Samsung 470 Series 256 GB

The Samsung drive sports a lightweight plastic casing which makes it ideal for use in a laptop. It should protect the insides reasonably well but lacks the indestructible feeling of the Kingston casing.

Figure 6: Inside the Samsung 470 Series 256 GB

It’s clear that Samsung has designed the drive’s board to be used with 1.8” drives as well as 2.5” ones, as it’s far smaller than the outer casing. Samsung has chosen to use sixteen 16 GB memory chips to make up the 256 GB capacity which are located on both sides of the board. On the top of the board we find one of the two buffer chips and nine memory chips. The remaining buffer chip and seven memory chips are located on the underside of the board alongside the Samsung S3C29MAX01-Y340 controller. This supports maximum read and write speeds of 250 MB/s and 230 MB/s, respectively.