Corsair Performance Pro 256GB SSD Review - PAGE 1

The SSD market is flooded with SandForce based drives, and in just a year’s time one would be hard pressed to review an SSD that didn't feature a SandForce controller. This highlights the sheer popularity of SandForce, but there are still additional solutions on the market. One such option is the Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2, which is an 8-channel controller that supports 500+ Mb/s speeds via SATA 6Gbps interface. Additionally, the latest Marvell controllers no longer suffer from the stuttering issues that initially harmed the controller’s popularity, allowing the SandForce controller to take over the market.

The drive Neoseeker reviews today is the Corsair Performance Pro, which is the successor to the Performance 3 SSD. Like its predecessor, the Performance Pro series is based on Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 controller and utilizes the SATA 6Gbps interface. However, the Pro series uses ONFI 2.1, thus offering a simplified flash controller design, and performance levels ranging from 166 megabytes per second (MB/s) to 200 MB/s. The Pro series also includes high quality Toshiba synchronous MLC NAND flash memory rated at speeds of up to 515 MB/s sequential read, 440 MB/s sequential write and 65K IOPS (4K aligned).

Since most of the SSDs in our test bed utilize the SF-2281 controller, it is going to be interesting to see how the Corsair Performance Pro compares. In terms of pricing there is very little difference between the drives using the SandForce and Marvell controllers. Quickly glancing e-tailers, we found the 256GB Corsair Performance Pro priced at $399, while the 240GB Corsair Force GT sells for $379.