Legit Storage Reviews
Corsair Force Series 120GB SandForce SF-1200 SSD Review
| Manufacturer: | Corsair |
| Product: | CSSD-F120GB2-BRKT |
| Date: | Wed, Jun 16, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Joe Evans - |
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Capacity, Final Thoughts & Conclusions
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, the Corsair Force 120GB SSD allows for the majority of the onboard NAND to be utilized at which is a 20% increase over it's F100 predecessor. A change from 28% to 7% overprovisioning is huge and really gives the user some breathing room for the OS and a host of applications as well as making them comparable in size to the other drives on the market based on other controllers.
We've already pointed out the mystery surrounding the firmware versions for the Sandforce controllers. Not to add to the confusion, but a new Mass Production (MP) firmware is available now and will be shipping on retail versions of this drive. The sample drive we received is still running a version of the RC firmware but we expect performance to meet or exceed what we have seen with this firmware.
As far as performance is concerned, we observed almost exactly what we saw with the Force 100GB drive, as we expected. We found both of these drives to be among the best performing MLC SATA II drives available which is typical of the all Sandforce based drives we have seen from nearly all manufacturers.
The prices for SSD's haven't come down much as of late with the economy doing the yo-yo and NAND being consumed voraciously by iPads and smartphones. With Corsair freeing up more available capacity without having to add more onboard NAND really helps add to the value of the drive without increasing production costs, so the consumer wins. While the Force 120GB drive is listed online at Amazon for $350, it looks like they don't have it in stock yet which means the price is almost assuredly going to come down once it is more widely available - unless there are supply issues. As for the F100, it doesn't appear to be available at retailers any longer but when released, it was selling for over $450 which translates into $4.50+ per usable GB as opposed to the $2.90/usable GB we see with the F120. Clearly if you are faced with a choice between the 100GB and 120GB Force drives, the 120GB is the way to go.
Legit Bottom Line: If you had been thinking about picking up the Corsair Force 100GB SSD, the 120GB version should help make that purchasing decision a ton easier. With 20% more available storage, three year warranty, the same great performance and a price per GB ratio that won't make you tear up, we would add this to our short list of recommended SSD's.
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| Review Index |
|
Page 1 - Corsair Force Series 120GB SSD Intro
Page 2 - A Look Inside The Force SSD Page 3 - The Test System Page 4 - ATTO v2.41 & AS SSD Benchmarks Page 5 - HD Tune Pro v4.01 Page 6 - HD Tach v3.0.4.0 & CrystalDiskMark v3.0 Page 7 - PCMark Vantage & SiSoft Sandra 2010 Page 8 - Capacity, Final Thoughts & Conclusions |
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