In our Kingston V200 review today, we’ll be looking at an SSD that is a refresh from one of the more popular entry level SSDs during the SATA II era, the Kingston SSDNow V100. SSDs have come a long way since then, and to keep up, the Kingston V200 comes equipped with JMicron’s newest SATA-3 compatible controller, and 128GB of Toshiba 24nm toggle flash.

The drive we’re reviewing is from the latest batch, which includes the new E120506a firmware. Kingston say that this firmware takes care of the issues some people have been having with early revisions of the drive, and performance will be improved as well. So if you have been reluctant to consider the Kingston V200 due to negative reviews on shopping sites and forums, you might want to take another look with us.

Starting with this review, we have given our SSD testing methodology a refresh, and I think you’ll see that it was worthwhile. The 80+ hours of testing that was required to give us meaningful results will help you determine if the Kingston V200 is worthy of consideration. We’ll be comparing it to two drives in the same price range – the venerable Crucial m4 128GB, and the budget SandForce drive, OCZ’s Agility 3 120GB.