Kingston TRIMs second-gen SSDs

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 23 February 2010 15:48

Business IT - Technology

Kingston has added TRIM support to its latest solid state drives and improved performance without increasing prices.

Kingston's SSDNow V series solid state drives (SSDs) handle the TRIM command used by operating systems including Windows 7.

The ATA TRIM command provides an operating system with a way of telling an SSD that one or more data blocks are no longer in use. The drive can then avoid unnecessarily rewriting data (SSDs can only delete data in much larger blocks than they can write), and wear levelling (rewriting data to avoid the disproportionate use of certain blocks) is made more efficient.

TRIM support helps reduce the performance degradation observed in SSDs over time.

"Kingston has really increased the performance on the new second generation SSDNow V Series drive without raising the price, and maintaining pricing will be huge for our customers," said Vaughan Nankivell, Kingston's  regional manager for Australia and New Zealand.

"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. The addition of TRIM support is a key benefit because it enables the SSD to maintain optimal performance throughout its lifespan," he added.

So, how much to they cost, and when can you buy them? Please read on.