At a look

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Good total efficiency
• Great random efficiency for an HMB design
• Affordable with guarantee and TBW ranking

Cons

• Runs out of secondary cache extra shortly than most

Our Verdict

The Corsair MP600 Elite ranks very excessive performance-wise among the many host reminiscence buffer (HMB) SSDs we’ve examined. It’s worthy of your NVMe 4.0 brief record when you’re not frequently writing very massive recordsdata.

Price When Reviewed

1TB: $90/$95 (w/heatsink) I 2TB: $165/$170 (w/heatsink)

Corsair’s MP600 Elite NVMe SSD is inexpensive, quick with smaller knowledge units and random writes, and is accessible with a beefy heatsink to get rid of thermal throttling underneath heavy hundreds. That heatsink can also be unusually inexpensive, incurring solely a $5 surcharge.

The barely parsimonious secondary caching on this host reminiscence buffer (HMB) design limits the drive’s efficiency when you write greater than 50GB of huge recordsdata, however the 1.3GBps native write fee is gentle years higher than that of QLC designs.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best PCIe 4.0 SSDs to study competing merchandise.

What are the Corsair MP600 Elite’s options?

I’ve already clued you in in regards to the host reminiscence buffer (aka, DRAM-less) design and the heatsink. Beyond that, the MP600 Elite is a 2280 (22mm broad, 80mm lengthy) PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.4, M.2 SSD. The controller is a Phison PS5027-E27-61 and the NAND is layered TLC.

Corsair warranties the MP600 Elite for 5 years with a 600TBW (terabytes that could be written) per 1TB of capability ranking. That’s par for the course on each counts.

How a lot does the Corsair MP600 Elite value?

The Corsair MP600 Elite is accessible with/with out the warmth sink in 1TB ($90/$95) and 2TB ($165/$170) flavors. If you’re on the lookout for a warmth sink, a $5 surcharge is a pittance. Most distributors cost $10 or extra.

How quick is the Corsair MP600 Elite?

While the 2TB MP600 Elite Corsair despatched us for testing didn’t set any information, it benchmarks within the higher echelon of HMB SSDs that we’ve examined — sixth out of 15 drives.

However, the considerably meager 50GB allotment of secondary cache (the TLC written as SLC, one bit at a time as a substitute of three) held the drive again in our real-world checks, although not drastically because of a nonetheless considerably vigorous off-cache (TLC/3-bit) native write fee of 1.35GBps.

As you may see beneath, the MP600 Elite was very sprightly in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential testing. Faring fairly effectively in comparison with its MP600 Core Mini cousin, the brand-new Samsung 990 EVO, Teamgroup’s MP44, and the WD SN770. All are HMB designs.

The MP600 Elite additionally proved greater than worthy in random 4K efficiency, one thing HMB designs aren’t essentially well-known for.

The MP600 Elite was very quick at our 48GB transfers — when given time to breathe. My first run writing the 48GB single file took 32 seconds fairly than the 14 proven within the chart — apparently as a result of I did not let the drive get better sufficiently from the the 48GB file and folder write. But it does level out the boundaries of the 50GB cache.

Also highlighting the restricted 50GB secondary cache was a write fee drop from 3.2GBps to the aforementioned 1.35GBps through the 450GB write. While not optimum, it’s hardly the tragic 150MBps you’ll see from some QLC designs underneath comparable circumstances.

Below you may see precisely when the MP600 Elite ran out of secondary cache.

All in all, the MP600 Elite, whereas not taking the highest spot, did Corsair proud. Avoid it for tremendous heavy, steady workloads, however short-list it in any other case.

Should you purchase the Corsair MP600 Elite?

If you’re on the lookout for good on a regular basis efficiency with out breaking the financial institution, then sure, think about the Corsair MP600 Elite for buy. The heatsink variations are a selected cut price. Nice job, Corsair.

How we take a look at

Drive checks at present make the most of Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit working on an X790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Intel built-in graphics are used. The 48GB switch checks make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking over 58GB of the 64GB complete reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which additionally comprises the working system.

Each take a look at is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that as any drive fills up, efficiency will lower as a result of much less NAND for secondary caching, and different components.

The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped in addition to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can fluctuate by capability as a result of extra or fewer chips to learn/write throughout and the quantity of NAND accessible for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors additionally sometimes swap parts. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report (methods being roughly equal), by all means—tell us.