Review: Corsair Performance Pro SSD (256GB)

by Parm Mann on 12 December 2011, 11:30 4.5

Final thoughts and rating

When Corsair announced its intention to launch another Marvell-based solid-state drive, we expected good performance at a competitive price. What we have is a little more than that.

By factoring in a larger cache, high-speed Toshiba NAND and a firmware designed to utilise these improvements, Corsair has created a drive that convincingly stands up to the SandForce crowd.

The vast selection of SandForce alternatives remain unmatched in terms of raw sequential throughput, but the Performance Pro is adept in all areas. Sequential read and write speeds are good, the drive's great with incompressible data such as movies and music, and it's a monumental upgrade over a traditional hard disk.

Bottom line: the Performance Pro is blazing fast in almost every scenario; SSDs don't come much better than this.

The Good

Exceptional performance from a tried-and-trusted Marvell controller
Copes well with both compressible and incompressible data sets
Competitive pricing; cheaper than the equivalent Force GT
All the benefits of an SSD; including instant access and no noise

The Bad

128GB model won't necessarily be as quick

HEXUS Rating

Corsair Performance Pro (256GB)

HEXUS Awards

Corsair Performance Pro (256GB)

HEXUS Where2Buy

The 256GB Corsair Performance Pro SSD is available to purchase from scan.co.uk*.

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“SandForce's supremacy” is definitely a matter of opinion - fast read/write times are nothing if the drives arent reliable (im looking at you OCZ)

The marvell controller has proven itself reliable and good in pretty much all data scenarios - making it the ssd of choice for anyone that doesnt enjoy rma's - so this review should really have been vs the 256gb m4, not sandforce based drives :p

Looks like corsair recognised this and made the whole thing quicker, and pricing looks to be only marginally higher than the equivalent m4 (based on scan pricing)… seems like a winner!

This is exactly why I went with the 256GB M4 a few months back, and my PC goes like poo off a teflon coated lubed up shovel whilst also being stable, consistent and reliable.

Had I seen reviews and availability for this drive a few months back I might have gone for it. Would love to see a 256GB comparison, this vs m4 vs Patriot Wildfire vs OCZ Vertex Max etc etc.

Deleted
This is exactly why I went with the 256GB M4 a few months back, and my PC goes like poo off a teflon coated lubed up shovel whilst also being stable, consistent and reliable.

Haha, talk about taking it to the extreme =P
How does your 256GB compare with the 128GB m4 they benched?

I'm in the market for a SSD drive I have a Force 3 120GB in my other PC but its currently out on loan, hopefully he'll be calling me to buy the whole setup off me tomorrow. It was a blazingly fast system whilst I had it (Want it back or the money to replace it lol)

Not to pleased that the reviews aren't a little more even on size. How can they compare a Corsair 120GB Force 3 vs an OCZ 240GB Agility 3? Apple to apples please! Or are they simply saying the difference is so negligible between two 240GB Sandforce 2281 drives that there's no point in listing them?

They have done the exact same with this review! 256GB vs 128GB. They even say that the 128GB model will be slower, yet they still compare the 256GB Marvell powered drive to another with only 128GB? Could the results be considered bias or perhaps misleading to some readers?