No, the standard drivers for any HDD will support Kingston SSDNow drives as plug and play components, such as those bundled with Windows or MacOS.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-04

SSDs do not require defragmentation. Since they do not contain a physical disk, there is no need to organise the data in order to reduce seek time. Therefore defragmenting an SSD is not effective. Also, defragmenting an SSD can put undue wear on specific areas of the drive. SSDs are designed to write data as evenly as possible over the entire drive to reduce undue wear to any one location. Defragmenting your SSD drive a couple of times will not harm it. However, if it is done continuously over a long period, it may reduce the life of the drive.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-03

Over time, most of the storage locations on an SSD are written to. When they get written to again, they need to be conditioned in order to accept new data. This can cause a delay and is seen as a reduction in drive performance. Garbage Collection is a function built into a SSD that reconditions empty storage locations so when new data is written to the drive, there are locations on the SSD ready to accept data.

Although the Garbage Collection function is built into most SSD drives, some drives perform this more efficiently than others. TRIM resolves this issue by letting the operating system tell the drive when to perform this function. At this time, only Windows 7, Server 2008, MacOS 10.7 and newer versions of Linux use TRIM. Also, there are no RAID configurations that support TRIM no matter what operating system is used. All of Kingston's MLC based SSDNow drives are TRIM compatible. Some of our first generation SSDNow drives are not TRIM compatible. 

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-13

First, open an Elevated Command Prompt window.

To open an Elevated Command Prompt window: Click on Start Orb > Type "CMD.exe" in Search box > Right click on "CMD" and select "Run as Administrator" (If you receive a prompt confirmation, click YES)

To verify that the TRIM command is enabled, type the following and press enter in the Elevated command:

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

The results will be as follows: DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled) DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

To enable the TRIM command, type the following and press enter in the Elevated command:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

To disable the TRIM command, type the following and press enter in the Elevated command:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

FAQ: KSD-072211-GEN-18

Performance decreases have been reported on some SSDNow drives. If you have an older SSD drive that does not have effective Garbage Collection, SSD drive performance will decrease over time. This is due to the way the system overwrites data that has been flagged for deletion.

Try using the Secure Erase tool like HDDErase to wipe the drive and restore it to its original condition.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-12

We have a page specifically for upgrade kit support at the link below. http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/faq?model=ssd_bundle

FAQ: KSD-073112-GEN-19

Try the other SATA ports on your motherboard. Make sure you have the latest BIOS updates for your motherboard. Disable the AHCI feature in the BIOS. If you cannot find this setting in your BIOS, please refer to your manual or contact your motherboard or computer manufacturer. If none of this helps, please contact technical support for help.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-11

Any of our SSDs can be used in RAID. However, due to endurance specifications, only certain part numbers should be used in RAID. For servers, please contact Kingston to determine the best Kingston SSD to use for your workload.

FAQ: KSD-052511-GEN-17

Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) is a built-in monitoring capability in hard drives and SSDs. It can allow users to monitor the health of a device. It does this through monitoring software designed specifically for the SMART feature. All of our SSDNow drives support SMART.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-10

The Windows Experience Index (WEI) merely measures the relative capability of components. The WEI only runs for a short time and does not measure the interactions of components under a software load, but rather characteristics or your hardware.

The WEI does not therefore measure the performance of a system, but merely the relative hardware capabilities when running Windows 7. An article about the WEI can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/01/19/engineering-the-windows-7-windows-experience-index.aspx

In Vista, the WEI scores ranged from 1.0 to 5.9. In Windows 7, the range has been extended upward to 7.9.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-08

SSDNow drives are tested and validated to work on the latest notebook AND desktop platforms.

FAQ: KSD-011411-GEN-07

Kingston realises the importance of keeping our customers' personal data and information confidential and secure. Kingston takes measures to ensure the security of all of our customers' personal information when a Solid State Drive (SSD) is returned to our RMA facility for warranty replacement or repair. When an SSD reaches our repair centre, it will undergo a thorough testing process. During the first phase of testing, an ATA Secure Erase is performed on the SSD, which erases all data and information. ATA Secure Erase is federally approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST 800-88) for legal sanitisation of confidential user data. If the SSD is not in a functional state and not capable of undergoing an ATA Secure Erase, the SSD is dismantled and the NAND Flash Memory is destroyed.

FAQ: KSD-022411-GEN-15

No. The cloning software will fail to execute if a password is enabled on the source hard drive. Passwords should be disabled prior to the cloning process.

FAQ: KSD-030111-GEN-16