Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD Review - PAGE 2

The Force GT comes packaged in a small rectangular box that lists the key specifications on the front. These include the size of the drive, SATA interface, model and maximum speed ratings. Overall the packaging is stylish and clean, while at the same time still informative enough for the average consumer.

The back panel of the packaging includes a brief statement about the Force GT series drives written is six different languages: "Boost your high-end system to the next level with a Corsair Force GT SSD. Take advantage of leading-edge SATA 3 speed for dramatically better system performance, quicker boot times and faster game level loads."

The SSD is secured to a clear plastic casing and is separated from the components via cardboard divider. While an SSD doesn't need any accessories to function, Corsair has included a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch drive bay adapter that will allow it to be installed in any standard case.

The Corsair Force GT comes in a metal enclosure that has a red top panel and a black brushed aluminum bottom panel. The enclosure uses the standard 2.5-inch design, but again Corsair has included a 3.5-in adapter for desktop users. Along the sides of the drive, Corsair has placed two warranty stickers; removing these for any reason will naturally void the 3-year manufacturer warranty.

Internally the Force GT is a SATA 6Gbp/s SandForce-based SSD that is capable of achieving read speeds of up to 555 MB/s, and write speeds of up to 515 MB/s. The drive is also tuned for high IOPS performance, as it has a maximum 4KB Random Write rating of up to 85,000 IOPS. In addition, the Force GT supports all the features of the SandForce controller including DuraClass Technologies, RAISE, ECC Recovery and Native Command Queuing (NCQ) of up to 32 commands. The Force GT also includes native TRIM support, which will maintain the the drive's performance when used with Windows 7 or other supporting operating systems.

With the enclosure removed we can see that the 120GB Force GT uses the standard layout for a SandForce-based SSD. This entails the SF-2281 controller being positioned at the top of a green PCB, with 8 MLC NAND flash chips directly below it. All in all the 120GB Force GT has 16 Micron based MLC NAND flash chips arranged into two rows on both sides of the PCB. Each flash chip has a capacity of 8GB, which gives the drive a maximum capacity rating of 128GB. However, a portion of the memory is set aside for wear-leveling and firmware, giving the drive its final 120GB storage capacity. Of course this will be reduced even further after an OS partition is created, leaving a formatted storage capacity of around 111GB.

What makes the Force GT different from most models on the market is that it uses 25nm ONFI synchronous NAND flash memory. Synchronous memory tends to be more expensive than asynchronous memory, so this drive does command a price premium. However, synchronous memory will improve the overall performance of the Force GT. The reason being that it has a lower overhead than its asynchronous counterpart, which gives it greater throughput. This allows the Force GT to perform better than a standard SSD in tasks involving compressed data, such as video and music files