SSD shadiness: Kingston and PNY caught bait-and-switching cheaper components after good reviews

[john chambers]

"Over the past few months, we’ve seen a disturbing trend from first Kingston, and now PNY. Manufacturers are launching SSDs with one hardware specification, and then quietly changing the hardware configuration after reviews have gone out. The impacts have been somewhat different (more on that in a moment) but in both cases, unhappy customers are loudly complaining that they’ve been cheated, tricked into paying for a drive they otherwise wouldn’t have purchased".

 

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184253-ssd-shadiness-kingston-and-pny-caught-bait-and-switching-cheaper-components-after-good-reviews

[ShadowCaptain]

Thankfully I have never bought or recommended the Kingston or PNY SSds

[MegaDave91]

Shame on Kingston (both really, but I'm more familiar with Kingston)

[Syfes]

Riot! 

 

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[qwertywarrior]

bastards

[Jogostar]

Crucial all the way!

[MegaDave91]

Crucial all the way!

M500 babeh!

[Akolyte]

Crucial are the only ones I think would never do this.  I would like to say Samsung too, but sadly I do not trust Samsung to not do this. 

[EChondo]

So bait and switch with a sprinkle of false advertisement.

 

Sweet, I suggest everyone to file together and do a class action lawsuit.

 

Maybe we should check their RAM as well. What a shame, I have loads of Kingston RAM from over the years. Guess I'm going G.Skill from now on with Crucial on the side for SSD's.

[daemonowner]

Hey look @LinusTech your Gold sponsor is in the news.

 

Glad I bought Corsair RAM and a Samsung SSD. Won't be getting a Kingston USB Drive any time soon. Not that I was going to anyway.

[Sidiox]

Wow Kingston really fails me.... I have a Kingston SSD (and I'm very happy with it) and i always though Kingston was one of the more reliable brands...

[Scionyde]

It probably has to be mentioned that for most users, they probably won't notice a major difference in speeds, and that it would still be superior to what they get on a HDD.

 

That being said, I think this is a pretty crappy business practice, and I don't think I'd be inclined to buy Kingston/PNY products in the future. 

[Fetzie]

Crucial are the only ones I think would never do this.  I would like to say Samsung too, but sadly I do not trust Samsung to not do this.

Crucial handed out a firmware that gave a 25% increase in performance for free, they've got my repeat custom secured when I buy my next SSD.

[Paralectic]

fgTS i rek dem SSD manufacturers all 1v1

[deviant88]

Ive read this in a couple places i just bought last month for a merely 60Euro Kingston v300 120gb SSD and its like 3 times faster than my old Vertex 2 60gb SSD it runs with no issues i dont know what people complain about.

Also it came with latest firmware 527A preinstalled.

 

AS SSD

http://s29.postimg.org/fer9xr46f/as_ssd_bench_KINGSTON_SV300_S3_6_13_2014_1_09_46.png

 

CrystalDiskMark

http://s3.postimg.org/g31pu9aab/Untitled.jpg

 

ATTO

http://s24.postimg.org/fq5kc5679/Untitled.png

[Misanthrope]

Uh, someone should tell Linus perhaps it's time to reconsider their choice of sponsorship? Doesn't bodes well that good reviewers like LTT get mud on them because of a stupid fucking stunt like this

[Syfes]

Ive read this in a couple places i just bought last month for a merely 60Euro Kingston v300 120gb SSD and its like 3 times faster than my old Vertex 2 60gb SSD it runs with no issues i dont know what people complain about.

Also it came with latest firmware 527A preinstalled.

 

AS SSD

http://s29.postimg.org/fer9xr46f/as_ssd_bench_KINGSTON_SV300_S3_6_13_2014_1_09_46.png

 

CrystalDiskMark

http://s3.postimg.org/g31pu9aab/Untitled.jpg

 

ATTO

http://s24.postimg.org/fq5kc5679/Untitled.png

 

No one is saying they have bad products, the products they're selling like this are probably still a good value. Still Kingston trying to pull the wool over our eyes is not cool...

[Askew]

WTF @LinusTech you are selling this stuff better look into this.

[Si3Rra_7]

Samsung ftw , but if samsung disappears in a tragic meteor strike , i'll maybe buy Corsair(and ocz vertex 4s a few months back )

[Ren]

I've recommended PNY XLR8 drives as they're quite good, especially for their price. Usually cheap, anyway. I've never mentioned Optima drives because I know they're crap but it's funny how people are hating on PNY entirely because of what they did. It does sound kind of strange since they don't list any real minimum specs on their SSDs but the way I'm interpreting that statement is that if the drive sucks, they throw in SandForce controllers so it can meet their advertised specifications for said drives. It's basically binning products with a twist (selling a higher binned FX-8350 that's overclocked like mad as an FX-9590 that people so often believe, for example). Silver tongue marketing in a way, where you state it can reach X but your product may vary outside of those special circumstances that do allow the maximum performance. A lot of companies do similar things.

 

Could be wrong, never said I know what I'm talking about anyway, but that article really doesn't say much on the PNY side. And again, it's Optima drives. There are better drives out there even if PNY wasn't swapping anything out.

 

 

Kingston, on the other hand, got caught with their pants down IMO. It's been known for a while that they were messing with their SSDs but w/e, good to know it's being acknowledged by sites outside of forums and LMG now.

[Victorious Secret]

M500 babeh!

 

#M500masterrace

[samcool55]

This isn't the first time their performance is worse than it should be, i have a couple of kingston microSD cards and none of them reaches what they should, the class 4 ones can barely reach 3MB/s, and the class 10 ones won't go over 8MB/s (write speeds).

Just test it yourself, you will probably be suprised.

FYI the class number is the minimum writing speed in every situation it has to reach.

(dutch review: http://be.hardware.info/reviews/4527/8/49-sd--en-microsd-kaartjes-review-alle-kaarten-op-tafel-testresultaten-1000x-5-mb-schrijven Even if you don't understand dutch it's very clear)

So i got a samsung microSD (class 10) and it stays around 11MB/s

Screw you kingston, you are really ruining your reputation.

[JAKEBAB]

Did not know PNY made ssds also i heard about this ages ago with kingston but i thought they only did it with the v300.

[BloodySinner]

Now I know which companies' products to avoid in the future.

[totjup5]

I have owned recent drives from both Kingston and PNY, and never had a problem. They were all fast and reliable. I personally think this article contains a bit of hyperbole.