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

[LegendKillerRG]

Riot!

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

(╮°-°) ╮┳━┳ ...

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻

[Yoinkerman]

While they should have updated stuff to show they were using crappier flash, Kingston was making the v300s for a long time before changing the specs, I wouldn't call it bait and switch at all.

[DaRk0]

Meh, I'll stick with Intel and Samsung (maybe Crucial).

[Sauron]

Crucial are the only ones I think would never do this.

That's exactly what I thought about Kingston before I saw this! I hope it's an isolated episode and they won't do it again, all of my kingston stuff so fr has been great, although I never had an ssd from them.

[zeiferlance]

tsk tsk tsk...

same here. I never thought Kingston would do this. 

[Faceman]

While I really despise this kind of business tactic, I own a Kingston V300 that is of the "bad" variety.  My computer is still incredibly fast.  My PC goes from off to running Firefox in 8-10 seconds, that is pretty darn fast.  I would rather have an SSD than not have an SSD, if it means getting the least expensive SSD of the bunch, then so be it.  Those rated speeds are for large file transfers, something the average user probably doesn't do too often.  SSDs seem to perform the same when it comes to day-to-day tasks.

[john chambers]

It's Pretty shitty the way they do customers. I buy crucial/Samsung /Intel ssd's.  

[NannerBeans]

Everyone seems to have forgotten Adata. They have pretty cheap drives and are still reliable/fast.

[Seed]

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.

 

I don't think it has to be mentioned at all and find it pretty irrelevant. It's a cheat plain and simple regardless if people won't notice the difference.

[Mooshi]

What a major disappointment. I used to recommend Kingston because I trusted this brand and their products. Shady acts like this are not helping their image. Was already so-so on PNY, but now it's a pure will not recommend.

[john chambers]

What a major disappointment. I used to recommend Kingston because I trusted this brand and their products. Shady acts like this are not helping their image. Was already so-so on PNY, but now it's a pure will not recommend.

I would drop them as a sponsor if I were Linus. But that is none of my business. Just because linus sponsors a company that does this kind of shit doesn't mean I have to buy their products. from now on I will not be buying Kingston anything not even a flash drive.  

[Mooshi]

I would drop them as a sponsor if I were Linus. But that is none of my business. Just because linus sponsors a company that does this kind of shit doesn't mean I have to buy their products. from now on I will not be buying Kingston anything not even a flash drive.  

 

I kinda feel bad for Linus since his members aren't dumb. Tech news spreads fast and this is going to cause friction with some  members who will see a sponsor as a scumbag company.This is far beyond simple complaints against a sponsor like Corsair because not liking new designs or Intel for costing more as a whole over their rival AMD. This is a company that is purposely lying to consumers about performance.

 

Kingston does have some nice products, but this tarnished their record. Maybe Crucial might want to back Linus in the future as a main sponsor.

[Humbug]

I would drop them as a sponsor if I were Linus. But that is none of my business.

i don't think He should drop them. All he has to do is just cover this as a news item.

[samcool55]

1 thing about the sponsor stuff, his sponsored by HyperX, which looks the more of a division from kingston, it's something like the ROG division from ASUS, it's still asus but it's almost something complely on it's own.

And he never says Kingston HyperX, he says HyperX fury.

[Misanthrope]

i don't think He should drop them. All he has to do is just cover this as a news item.

 

He replied in Twitter and said this is old news and believes he addressed this in the past. What I think he should do it's just be fair: Go buy a retail version of the SSDs in question and compare it head to head vs the reviewing sample next time, do a "revisit" some months down the line as well.

[Kamina]

Tsk... tsk... just lost a lot of respect.

[LAwLz]

Isn't this pretty old news (at least the Kingston one)? I read about the Kingston SSD V300 silently switching NAND several months ago.

It's a shame seeing PNY following in Kingston's footsteps (and Kingston following in OCZ Vertex 2's footsteps which also changed flash without telling anyone).

 

The performance difference is a really big deal as well, at least on the V300. Performance were in many cases cut in half or worse. Just imagine buying a 2TB HDD and when you put it in your computer it's a 1TB drive, but there is a text file saying "most people won't use more than 1TB anyway". Will most people use more than 1TB? Probably not, but they are still cheating customers by using false advertising. If you are going to make changes to a product then make it possible to differentiate them before buying, like add a v2 at the end of the name or something (and add it on the box as well! I am looking at you Razer).

[john chambers]

Isn't this pretty old news (at least the Kingston one)? I read about the Kingston SSD V300 silently switching NAND several months ago.

It's a shame seeing PNY following in Kingston's footsteps (and Kingston following in OCZ Vertex 2's footsteps which also changed flash without telling anyone).

I don't think it is. It was pulished a few days ago.

[Foxxer]

I've been their loyal RAM customer for years now. Hope they stay this way atleast.

[Dylan522p]

 

Listen, before Reddit goes full anti-CISPA meme squad mode, you really need to wait until more information is available about the PNY Optima SSD.

 

I am well aware of what Kingston did and it was unquestionably unethical. Here are my three posts about it which brought light to the matter:

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1ur11x/discussion_psa_about_the_kingston_v300_ssd/

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1vfbrw/discussionupdate_on_the_psa_about_the_kingston/

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1zhxef/discussion_update_2_on_the_kingston_v300_ssd/

 

In Kingston's case, they DID change the NAND, supposedly based on availability, and it DID make the drive slower. If this makes you upset, nothing that has happened in the last 5 months should change that. Boycott them all you like.

 

However, Jumping to boycott PNY when we have almost no information about the supposed bait and switch is **EXTREMELY RASH**. We have ONE record of a person receiving a non-SMI based PNY Optima so we have no idea if this was in any way widespread. Silicon Motion is far from a big player in the consumer SSD Controller realm so it makes perfect sense that they wouldn't be able to meet demand. If that is the case, I don't blame PNY at all.

 

**~Most importantly~**, WE DON'T HAVE ANY BENCHMARKS OF THE SANDFORCE BASED DRIVE SO WE DON'T KNOW IF IT IS ACTUALLY WORSE. If PNY just changed the controller and is still using the 20nm IMFT Synchronous NAND that the old Optima used, then I guarantee the drive will perform either the same or better in basically every metric.

 

Should they have changed the controller without telling anyone? Probably not. But if PNY really only changed the controller then I 100% do not have a problem with this business practice. In that case they would have changed something that will either positively affect or won't affect basically everyone. You essentially would be getting an upgrade from the Optima to an XLR8 because the PNY XLR8 is a synchronous Sandforce based drive. 

 

I've seen articles like [this](http://www.myce.com/news/same-named-ssd-models-might-have-different-nand-and-controller-71794/?PageSpeed=noscript) with outlandish titles claiming that the SSD **might** have changed NAND but include absolutely no evidence for this.

 

______________

 

TL;DR You guys seriously need to hold off on your defamation quest on PNY. This news just came out 3 days ago. Wait for this story to take shape before going on a smear campaign that might hurt a company that possibly did nothing wrong.

 

I'm probably going to be buying a PNY Optima to open it up to see the components and then benchmark it. The only problem is that I want to make sure it is a Sandforce based Optima. **If anyone has an Optima and wants to check the firmware to see if it matches up with the Sandforce naming scheme, PM me. It should look like this: 541ABBF0(or with similar numbers/letters). Maybe we can work something out where I can purchase it from you.**

[WedgeTalon]

 

But if PNY really only changed the controller then I 100% do not have a problem with this business practice.

 

 

I'm going to disagree strongly with this. The controller is one of the often advertised differentiating features of SSDs. I don't buy Samsung SSDs expecting to get any random controller, I expect Samsung's controller. It would be like a mechanical keyboard switching from Cherry Reds to a "red switch". Maybe the new switch performs just as good or better, but that's not why I bought that keyboard, I expected the particular brand of switch. If you want to make a major change to a product like this, give the product a new name. Even just a simple "ProductX v2" would do.

[Dylan522p]

I'm going to disagree strongly with this. The controller is one of the often advertised differentiating features of SSDs. I don't buy Samsung SSDs expecting to get any random controller, I expect Samsung's controller. It would be like a mechanical keyboard switching from Cherry Reds to a "red switch". Maybe the new switch performs just as good or better, but that's not why I bought that keyboard, I expected the particular brand of switch. If you want to make a major change to a product like this, give the product a new name. Even just a simple "ProductX v2" would do.

Big difference though, PNY never advertised the controller. + They had to change the controller if they wanted to use the better NAND that they put in the new version. Also the sandforce controller is better than the old controller.

[79wjd]

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.

Crucial is just an amazing company. They have great prices, amazing reliability, and excellent customer service. I literally couldn't ask for more from them. I had an issue with my Crucial M4, and rather than making me sit there like an asshole and jump through hoops while they jerk me around they just started out by saying that I can either ship them my ssd and they'll send a replacement; or I can put down collateral and they'll send me the new ssd and then I can send mine back. Great Company. 

[john chambers]

Crucial is just an amazing company. They have great prices, amazing reliability, and excellent customer service. I literally couldn't ask for more from them. I had an issue with my Crucial M4, and rather than making me sit there like an asshole and jump through hoops while they jerk me around they just started out by saying that I can either ship them my ssd and they'll send a replacement; or I can put down collateral and they'll send me the new ssd and then I can send mine back. Great Company. 

 

I had a M4 and was forced to use samsung 840 evo because of price. The M500 was more xpensive at the time.

[Fetzie]

I had a M4 and was forced to use samsung 840 evo because of price. The M500 was more xpensive at the time.

 

I've had a couple of problems with Samsung's warranty service, not too hot on buying their products any more.