Kingston released the SSDNow V300 series of SSD's in the spring of 2013 to mildly approving reviews. It was not a particularly fast SSD, nor was it meant to be cutting edge, but it did surprise some reviewers in that Kingston was using synchronos NAND in this Sandforce based drive, since the synchronos chips were more expensive. This was seen as a positive move by Kingston.
Anandtech reviewed the drive, and expressed some misgivings about the NAND used in these models, simply because Kingston did not reveal their sources and they print their own logo on the chips themselves, so it is not possible to trace them. But overall the drives tested well enough for a low-cost drive.
Here is an example of an ATTO benchmark, used by Kingston to describe the performance of these drives. It is from a Tweaktown review when the drives were first released:
But recently, there have been many complaints about the performance of these drives. No other benchmark shows this kind of performance, due in part to compressibility of data used in the tests, and users are complaining that real world use of the drive is far from what is expected. A Reddit thread indicates that at least one Kingston representative affirmed that asynchronos NAND is now being used in some of the V300 drives.
Numerous complaints at Anandtech, Hard OCP, Amazon and Newegg have been showing up for the last couple of months.
This seems like a classic case of bait and switch in regard to the type of chips used in the drives. But nothing can be confirmed with any certainty. It is one thing to consider, however, when buying your next SSD.
