Corsair Force MP500 M.2 NVMe SSD Review (480GB) – Is The Force Strong With This One?

TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

SSD testing at TSSDR differs slightly, depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise SSDs. For consumer SSDs, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide. To see the best performance possible, the CPU C states have been disabled, C1E support has been disabled, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) has been disabled. Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with a fresh drive so, not only can we verify that manufacturer specifications are in line but also, so the consumer can replicate our tests to confirm that they have an SSD that is top-notch. We even provide links to most of the benchmarks used in the report.

TSSDR 2017 Z170 Test System

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to those who jumped in specifically to help the cause. Key contributors to this build are our friends at ASRock for the motherboard and CPU and be quiet! for the PSU and cooling fans. Also, a big thank you to Thermaltake for the case and Kingston for the RAM. We have detailed all components in the table below and they are all linked should you wish to make a duplicate of our system as so many seem to do, or check out the price of any single component. As always, we appreciate your support in any purchase through our links!

PC CHASSIS: be quiet! DARK BASE 900
MOTHERBOARD: ASRock Z170 OC Formula
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K
CPU COOLER: Corsair H75
POWER SUPPLY: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W
SYSTEM COOLING: be quiet! Silent Wings 2
MEMORY: Patriot Viper Elite Series DDR4
STORAGE: Samsung 850 Pro
OS: Windows 10 Anniversary 64-bit
IRST DRIVER: 14.8.0.1042

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software in use for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of Crystal Disk Info, TRIMcheck, ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD, Anvil’s Storage Utilities, PCMark Vantage, and PCMark 8. We prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.

CRYSTAL DISK INFO VER. 6.8.2

Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.

CORSAIR MP500 SSD 480GB CDI

Crystal Disk Info, shows us that SMART is indeed supported. There is a working temperature monitor, total hose read and write attributes and more. The firmware we are testing today is E7FM02.1, which matches the same firmware we had on the Patriot Hellfire in our last review.

TRIMCHECK

We’ve covered TRIMcheck in the past. It is a great tool that easily lets us see if TRIM is actually functioning on a SSD volume in your system.

Patriot Hellfire 480GB TRIMCheck

As can be seen in the screenshot above, TRIMcheck’s result shows that TRIM is working as intended.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.05

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

CORSAIR MP500 SSD 480GB ATTO

Overall, ATTO’s results are similar to what we saw with the Patriot Hellfire. Sequential speeds ramp up to nearly 3GB/s read and 2.4GB/s write by the 512KB file size.

3 comments

  1. blank

    I’ve asked this question before but I don’t think I’ve got an answer . how is Corsairs quality control? because when you look at ssds on Newegg,Corsair has more refurbished ssds for sale than all the other brands combined.it makes me think there products fail more than others.

  2. blank

    Both Corsair’s customer service and quality control are top notch. We reached out to them for comment on the number of refurbished drives seen at Newegg.com. Corsair advises that Newegg is their sole retailer of refurbished Corsair SSDs, and considering that Corsair sells hundreds of thousands of SSDs, even at a 1% failure rate (the real failure rate is likely less), that creates thousands of refurbished drives to be sold through Newegg.
    Lack of other brands of refurbs, or lesser quantities of refurbs should definitely not be viewed as indicative of Corsair’s quality compared to other brands.

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