Kingston Memory this week said it had started shipping its SSDNow M-series with a set of accessories that should make it much easier for end-users to upgrade from hard disk drives to solid-state drives. While the decision will indisputably make acquisition of Kingston’s SSDs, this will hardly encourage end-users to switch from HDDs to flash-based storage simply due to price.

From now on, all Kingston SSDNow M-series solid-state drives will ship with Acronis TrueImage hard drive cloning software and CD installation guide, USB 2.5" enclosure with accompanying USB cable, 2.5" to 3.5" drive bay mounting brackets and screws (for desktop PCs) and Serial ATA data and power cable extenders. The bundle should make it easier to transfer all the necessary software from a hard drive to Kingston’s SSDNow M-series drive and install the SSD into a desktop computer.

“This all-in-one kit is the perfect solution for enterprise companies, corporate end users and consumers to incorporate SSD technology into existing systems. The Kingston SSDNow M-series bundle makes moving the operating system, applications and all other data from a hard-disk drive to a solid-state drive quick and easy whether for a notebook, desktop or workstation,” said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager at Kingston.

Although additional software and accessories will help end-users to transit to new type of storage, it is highly unlikely that it will actually catalyze such transition. Kingston charges $427 and $843 for SSDNow M 80GB and 160GB, respectively, which is still very expensive compared to hard disk drives. Moreover, such price-points mean that hardly a lot of end-users would install those SSDs into older PCs, whereas new personal computers will hardly need disk cloning software.

Kingston SSDNow M breed (Intel X25-M) features up to 250MB/s sequential read speed and up-to 70MB/s sequential write speed and offers 1.2 million hours MTBF.

Tags: Kingston, SSD, Flash