Corsair Performance Series Pro (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on May 14, 2012 9:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Corsair
- Marvell
- Corsair Performance Pro
Final Words
Corsair's Performance Series Pro is very fast, and well behaved. Its power consumption is also nice and low, making it a good fit for notebook users. In the end, it all boils down to pricing. SSD pricing is highly volatile - at the time of publication the Performance Series Pro, at least at Newegg, came in a bit too high.
Given the solid track record of Samsung's SSD 830 and its good performance, we really need to see pricing more in-line with it or Crucial's m4 for the Performance Series Pro to make sense. If you come across one of these drives on a good sale however, don't hesitate to pull the trigger.
Longer term there are always concerns about Marvell's ability to deliver timely firmware updates to its customers who lack their own internal firmware teams. It's because of this that pricing is even more important to get right.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (5/14/2012) | ||||
| 64GB | 128GB | 256GB | 512GB | |
| Corsair Performance Series Pro | N/A | $200 | $340 | N/A |
| Plextor M3 | $130 | $180 | $340 | $660 |
| Crucial m4 | $80 | $120 | $250 | $600 |
| Intel 520 Series | $113 | $179 | $331 | $825 |
| Samsung 830 Series | $100 | $130 | $310 | $710 |
| OCZ Vertex 3 | $165 | $110 | $250 | $650 |
| OCZ Vertex 4 | N/A | $150 | $300 | $650 |
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Kristian Vättö - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
Anand is waiting for the final version before publishing any data. Apparently there are a few things that OCZ promised will be featured in the final version, but I'm not sure what.SlyNine - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
I plan on running drives in Raid 0. Trim doesn't do anything there so its important how a drive deals with a no trim situation.Coroder - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
I've been running first gen vertex drives in raid 0 since they were released and since installing the firmware on them that enabled garbage collection they have been fine and they are routinely at 90% capacity.Mars999 - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
What firmwares are you running on these drives?Thanks!
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
Corsair has not posted any firmware updates so in this case it's the stock firmware (1.00 I think). I'm not 100% sure what firmwares the other drives are running but you may be able to find that info in the review of a certain SSD. However, some drives were tested quite a while ago so they may not be running the latest firmware. We try to update our charts if there are significant gains from a newer FW, though.kstan12 - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
I would like to see my Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe 240GB reviewed & compared please!!biodtl - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
I second that notion! The Deluxe is a real performer and could put up some competition here.Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
Just sent an email to Mushkin :-)kstan12 - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
you rock!! hope to see it on here soon! thanks!!MarcHFR - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
Hi,You wrote
"Neither Plextor or Corsair manufactures the drives they sell. Both companies buy their drives from Lite-On and if you take a look at Lite-On's M3S SSD, it seems a lot like Corsair's Performance Series Pro and Plextor's SSDs, doesn't it? That's why the hardware of the Performance Pro and M3 is the same—they come from the same plant."
In fact Plextor is a part of PLDS, a joint venture between Lite-On IT and Philips.