Specifications and Features

So the Corsair Performance Pro sample has arrived in our secret test facility, it's the 256GB version of the drive, which means it's also the fastest compared to the 128GB model.

Initial tests straight away amazed us, this product can keep up with any SandForce SSF-2281 SSD product and Intel's latest and greatest as well.

Once it becomes available in the stores you'll notice two SKUs initially, a 128GB and 256GB 6Gbps SATA interface based SSD. This SATA3 version as such will deliver speeds of up to 515MB/s of bandwidth in read performance and a very nice 440 MB/sec in write performance (sequential).

We immediately have to state though, the 128GB version is a little slower, rated at  500 MB/s read and 340 MB/s sequential writes. More NAND chips equals more useable channels hence the 256GB version is a notch faster.

Product Features:

• Interface: SATA 3 6Gb/s
• Operating temperature: 0° C to +70° C
• Storage temperature: -20° C to +85° C
• Operating Humidity: 10% to 90% RH (0° to +40° C)
• Maximum Operating Altitude: 3,048 m (up to 10,000 ft.)
• Maximum Non-Operative Altitude: 12,192 m (up to 40,000 ft.)
• Three-year warranty
• SATA 3 6Gb/s
• Backward compatible with SATA II and SATA I
• Microsoft Windows 7, Vista®, and XP; Mac OS X; Linux
• 2.5" or 3.5" hard drive bay
• Max Sequential Read/Write (using ATTO Disk Benchmark) Up to 515 MB/s sequential read 440 MB/s sequential write
• Max Random 4k Write (using IOMeter 08) 65k IOPS (4k aligned)
• Technology Supercharged Synchronous NAND
• MTBF 1,500,000 hours

The Performance Pro solid state drives have great performance when dealing with compressed data compared to other drives, we'll check that out of course. But that means with large files like ISO, MP3, movies etc this SSD should be a beast. So sequential read and write performance should be staggering.

The two Performance Pro SSDs will include 2x nm-class Synchronous MLC Flash memory chips as well as 512MB of fast DRAM cache. Marvell works with a large memory cache, whereas SandForce uses a segment of the NAND flash the cache. That's the essential difference really.
The OCZ SSDs come with full support for the TRIM command as well as background garbage collection.

• Corsair Performance Pro Series 128 GB costs 180 EUR
  Corsair Performance Pro Series 256 GB costs 350 EUR

So these are initial prices, once they get in stock with decent volume we think another 5~10% will be shaved off the price fast enough. Corsair will get you a 3 year carry-in warranty on the product.