Samsung has dominated the solid state storage scene for the past few years and they recently updated their SSD lineup with two of the fastest drives we’ve ever tested. The MLC-based SSD 960 Pro and the more affordable TLC 960 Evo , both reviewed and proven to be extremely fast NVMe SSDs.
A tough act to follow for the competition, even for the likes of Intel , Corsair announced the Force MP500 SSD shortly after the release of the Samsung 960 Series.
The Force MP500 is a high-speed NVMe SSD targeting power users. The drive takes advantage of the more desirable MLC type NAND flash. However, unlike the 960 Pro series, capacities are available below half a terabyte. In fact, Corsair is offering this new series with a maximum capacity of 480GB while it is also possible to purchase a 240GB version and even a piddly 120GBer.
Availability for the new Samsung drives hasn’t been great, however given the performance on tap at $330 for the 512GB 960 Pro and $250 for the 500GB 960 Evo , they’ve able to single-handedly hold the competition at bay.
Intel’s SSD 750 Series and Toshiba’s OCZ RD400A simply can’t compete at the same level, so we’re looking forward to see how Corsair’s top offering holds up. We have the MP500 480GB model on hand for review and at $325 it’s priced to match the 960 Pro.
Actually, given the slight variation in capacity, the Corsair drive ends up a few cents more expensive per gigabyte, so the MP500 series isn’t exactly affordable. However, on paper, Corsair’s new flagship SSD series looks mighty impressive boasting sequential read/write speeds of 3GB/s and 2.4GB/s.
Before metaphorically seeing what the MP500 is made of, let’s take that phrase literally…
Based on the M.2-2280 form-factor all MP500 models utilize the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface for a blistering fast sequential read speed of 3GB/s, coupled with an equally impressive write throughput of 2.
