Corsair MP300 M2 NVMe 480GB SSD Review - Introduction

Corsair Force MP300 M.2. NVMe SSD tested

We review the Corsair Force MP300 480GB M2 NVMe SSD. With this release, Corsair offers a more affordable M2 NVMe SSD. The performance is wat faster than your normal SATA3 SSD, but not as fast as the MP500 for example. If you can settle for 1600 MB/s reads and 1 GB/sec writes, this might be a serious alternative in a saturated NAND storage market.

An SSD targeted towards gaming laptops and high-end PCs, it's thin and covered by a mixture of graphene foil. Available in capacities of 120 (€54), 240 (€79), 480 (€149) and 960 GB (€299) volume sizes. These units offer peak read performance of up to 1600 MB/s and peak write speeds up to 1080 MB/s, much faster way compared to what you can achieve with a SATA3 device. The random performance rated up-to 210K random read IOPS and up to 240K write IOPS. Being M.2., you do need a modern motherboard with capable NVMe supported M.2 (PCI-Expresse Gen 3.0 x2 (and not x4) connected) interface, please do check out your motherboard manufacturer for that. But ever the past year or two all Intel and AMD chipset released in the mainstream to high-end class support it very well.  M2 is interesting stuff, these smaller form factors storage units are evolving from being "just as fast" as a regular SSD towards double, tripling, heck... even quadrupling that performance. It comes in a different package, M.2. The M.2 interface is so much more capable as it can deal with way more bandwidth using PCI-Express lanes. As such, M.2 solutions are intended for enthusiast class motherboards. The series M.2 SSDs are a breathtaking series of storage technology as they offer enthusiast class performance yet remain reasonable in pricing depending on NAND type. 

The SSD is Corsair’s second consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) M.2 form factor SSD available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities. These sticks 'o fun have been fitted with Toshiba NAND (64-layer BiCS). The Corsair Force MP300 series M.2 product line is powered by a Phison PS5008 series NVMe controller. The SSD follows a smaller M.2 2280 (8cm) form factor so it will fit on most ATX motherboards capable of M.2 just fine.  Yeah, have a peek, and then let's head onwards into this review.

Corsair Force MP500 series M2 SSD with Phison PS5008-E8 controller and TLC written Toshiba NAND Flash