Kingston SSDNow V-series Gain Speed, TRIM Support

By Geoff Duncan Published February 11, 2010

Memory and storage manufacturer Kingston has announced its second generation of SSDNow V-series solid-state drives, designed for both mainstream consumer computer users and businesses. The new V-series drives range in capacity from 30 to 128 GB, offer improved performance over their predecessors, and incorporate TRIM support (which is built-in with Windows 7) to help the drives maintain their performance over their lifespan. The drives are available as drop-in replacements for both 3.5-inch desktop (via a mounting bracket) and 2.5-inch notebook hard drives.

Kingston SSDNow V-series 128 GB SSD — Image used with permission by copyright holder

“By bundling together all of the software, hardware and step-by-step instructions with the drive, we make it easy for everyday users to upgrade with an SSD,” said Kingston’s SSD business manager Ariel Perez, in a statement.

Recommended Videos

The 128 GB SSDNow V-series drive now offers a read speed of up to 200MB/sec, with a write speed as high as 160MB/sec. The 64 GB version steps down to a 110 MB/sec write time, while the 30 GB version reads at 180 MB/sec and writes at 50 MB/s. The drives all support SMART self-monitoring technology so users will know right away if a drive starts to develop problems, and all the drives now support a TRIM command, which is built into Windows 7. When a computer user deletes a file, typically the operating system just notes the data blocks that file occupied are available for use. The TRIM command lets the operating system pass that information along to the SSD drive controller, so the drive actually knows those sectors are available for re-use, and can organize its data storage more efficiently. The result is that SSD drives with TRIM support better maintain their performance levels over the entire life of the drive.

Kingston says the new SSDNow V-series drives should be available beginning February 15, with the 30 GB units going on sale a few weeks later on March 1. Suggested prices will range from $109.99 for a 30 GB stand-alone drive through $377 for a 128 GB notebook bundle.

Former Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Computing

AI is finding Apple security flaws faster than Apple can sort through them

Apple has limited how many bug reports researchers can keep open as AI tools produce both genuine Mac vulnerabilities and a flood of questionable submissions

Lighting, Architecture, Building

Apple has capped the number of security reports researchers can keep open at once after AI bug hunting put its review process under pressure, according to the Financial Times.

Some submissions describe hallucinated or purely theoretical risks. Others uncover vulnerabilities serious enough to require patches. Bynario told the FT that it found more than 50 possible macOS flaws in three weeks, including a privilege-escalation chain that could give an attacker full control of a Mac.

Computing

Anthropic is paying $1.5 billion over pirated books, but it can still legally cut up purchased ones

The settlement addressed unauthorized ebook downloads, not the destructive scanning of lawfully bought physical copies, a distinction now alarming booksellers

Book, Publication, Indoors

A federal judge has approved Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement over nearly half a million pirated books. The same litigation also protected a more physical method of feeding its AI systems. Anthropic bought print books, removed their bindings, scanned every page and destroyed the originals.

The legal divide came down to acquisition. The settlement covers books downloaded from LibGen and PiLiMi, while the court treated Anthropic’s one-for-one conversion of purchased books into private digital files as fair use. Training AI models on lawfully acquired material was also considered transformative.

Computing

Google Earth’s AI misadventure lasted only a day. It was a tale of dangerous ignorance.

Nuclear reactors, tanks, and historical destruction on a life-like satellite map? Yeah, that's bad.

Nano Banana AI image generator representation.

Technology behemoths are clearly not reading the room, or they are just moving faster than they should when it comes to AI deployment. Google has already stuffed its Gemini AI in every corner of its software stack, from Android to daily productivity tools like Gmail that are used by hundreds of millions of users every day. AI is everywhere. Not all of it is bad, mind you. But in a few places, it just feels forced.

In its latest AI-fication experiment, the company targeted Google Earth. The idea was to let the audience use its Nano Banana 2 AI image generator and make images that can be placed on the map view. On paper, it's a cool idea. What would the Colosseum of Rome look like in your urban neighborhood? Yeah, fun stuff like that.