Corsair Force Series MP500 Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅23-02-17
Conclusion

It’s been a while since Corsair unveiled a new SSD and today marks their first attempt with the M.2 form factor under the guise of NVMe.

The storage sector has now fully embraced a step forward and away from SATA-based SSDs and there are already a lineup of prevailing options – most notably from storage giants, Samsung. Knocking this brand off the podium is a huge undertaking and while Corsair may not have toppled the likes of the new 960 PRO and EVO, they have shown prowess in this department.

We found MP500 to be a solid M.2 SSD which is able to deliver some good numbers in terms of sequential read/write and IOPS. Putting such a drive next to a SATA-based SSD will highlight the substantial benefits to moving over to a PCI-Express Gen3 x4 option. The performance increase is significant and is a worthwhile consideration for enthusiasts wanting to tap into more efficient workflow.


By default, Windows 10 will pick up the MP500 and use a pre-loaded Windows driver. While this may be convenient there is a downside (as we pointed out earlier) in that write cache is automatically enabled and as such write performance is severely impeded unless this is disabled in Device Manager. Corsair should release a driver to counter this as some customers may not be aware of needing to alter such a setting – and frankly, they shouldn’t be required to.

The MP500 is currently on preorder in the UK but is available in the US. Prices indicate that the 480GB model we reviewed today can be had for £329 UK and $254 USD. Making it around the same price as equivalent Samsung models in the UK but $100 cheaper in the US. You also get a lengthy 3 year warranty which adds further value to the deal.

Corsair’s first M.2 NVMe SSD offers superb storage transfer rates and will be the icing on the cake for Corsair advocates.

Pros
+ Good overall performance
+ Pleasing design
+ Compact form factor
+ Corsair SSD toolbox with TRIM options
+ 3 Years Warranty

Cons
- Good case airflow is needed
- Rival M.2 NVMe drives are somewhat faster

Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.

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