Corsair MP400 4TB NVMe M2 SSD review - Introduction

Corsair MP400 NVMe M.2 SSD 4TB (!) - PCIe 3.0 x4

Powered by a Phison 5012-E12 controller and paired with 3D QLC NAND, Corsair offers something pretty staggering concerning sheer NAND volume storage, as yes, they out their new MP400 series NVMe M2 SSDs. The series is not targeted at an enthusiast audience but rather is released as a mainstream high capacity NVMe SSD series with very decent performance. Guys, honestly, in the year 2020, testing my first 4 TB NVMe NAND storage unit, that's just an amazing fact all by itself. But yeah, we're getting there; SSD storage is closing in on HDD volume sizes, a dream of many. And sure let me be the first to say it, they're still not cheap enough as here in the Netherlands you'll pay the pretty sum of € 599,- (14 cents /GB) but yeah, that reality is getting realistic, high volume super-fast NAND storage is on the horizon.

Not just that, this, my friends, is a QLC NAND written SSD. And before you go all 'eeeuuhw and naaaah,' it really did impress me in performance. It's as fast in any segment as a premium PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD, and due to strong buffers and full utilization of NAND channels, we did not hit a TLC/QLC write buffer issue either. Yeah, Corsair announced the launch of the new MP400 Gen3 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive, taking advantage of 3D QLC NAND technology to store massive amounts of data with lightning-fast transfer speeds of up to 3,400MB/sec sequential read and 3,000MB/sec sequential writes. The MP400 is available now in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and soon even 8TB capacities. Conveniently slotting directly into a motherboard thanks to its M.2 2280 industry-standard NVMe form-factor, the MP400 boasts wide-ranging compatibility and high-bandwidth performance, while its high-density 3D QLC NAND memory ensures better value than the previous generation TLC NAND, able to store more data in the same amount of physical space.

What about endurance, you wonder, well ... at 4TB, you have many NAND cells! And as such, this 4TB unit offers an endurance of up to 800 TB Written. That's not bad, eh? Let's head on over to the next page and talk a little more about all this.