Corsair MP400 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review

It has been a while since I had the pleasure to review a storage drive from Corsair, so it is a pleasure to have the MP400 SSD in the office today. The Corsair MP400 is a classic M.2 2280 drive which is built with QLC NAND. The MP400 is available from 1TB to 8TB, but I'm testing the 2TB version today. Corsair MP400 NVMe SSD Corsair is going for the affordable high-density area with the MP400, offering impressive capacity options. The 2TB NVMe SSD which I have in the office today can be considered moderate as the series is listed with up to 8TB capacity. It isn't even that long ago that 2TB on a standard M.2 2280 module was impressive, now we have up to four times that available. The drive series is built with two different controller chips. The smaller 1TB and 2TB versions come with the Phison E16 while the 4TB and 8TB are built around Phison's E12S controllers. It doesn't come as a big surprise that the E12S is user there and it is the same which we previously saw on the Rocket Q. It is currently the only controller small enough to allow up to 8TB on such a small form factor. In both cases, the controller is coupled with Micron's 96-layer QLC NAND which allows a lot of capacity on a small areal. The drive also features a bit of DDR4 cache in order to boost the performance. Feature-wise, you get what you need in a drive such as DevSLP and 256-bit AES encryption possibilities. Performance and Endurance The performance varies a bit depending on the capacity. This 2TB model delivers a sequential performance of up to 3480MB/s when reading and 3000MB/s when writing. The random performance comes in at 380K IOPS when reading and 560K when writing. The larger drive versions deliver the same sequential performance, but the random performance increases to 610K IOPS reading and 710K writing. Corsair backs the MP400 with a 5-year warranty and it comes with a TBW rating of 200TB per 1TB capacity. That makes this 2TB model come in at a TBW rating of 400TB. It also features a 1.8 million hours MTBF. What Corsair Does Have To Say? "A lightning-fast performance. Experience data speeds up to 3,400MB/s sequential read and 3,000MB/s sequential write speeds, many times faster than traditional SATA SSDs. High-Density 3D QLC NAND offers even better value than the previous generation TLC NAND, storing more data in the same amount of physical space." You can read more about the drive and its details on the official product page and series page. Feature Highlights Available from 1TB to 8TBStandard 2280 M.2 form factor for maximum compatibilityAffordable large-capacity SSD storage thanks to QLC NAND5-Year WarrantyBlack PCB and sticker for simple colour matching Package and Accessories The package for the Corsair MP400 will be hard to miss in a retail environment due to the bright yellow colour on the front. Overall, it's a great packaging as it tells you most things you need to know right on the front of the box. There is a picture of the included drive as well as the name, protocol, and bus. It also lists the capacity as well as both sequential and random read and write performance. Corsair got nothing to hide and a lot to show of with the MP400. The rear side is mostly for the barcode and various certification logos, but there is a summary of the drive in various languages too. Inside the cardboard wrapper is a hard-plastic box with the drive itself. It is well padded all around and it will make sure that your drive arrives in perfect condtion at your place. Inside is the drive itself, naturally, but also a M.2 installation guide and some safety information that are more for legal purpose than anything else. Testing & Methodology In a bid to make our testing as thorough and as accurate as possible, we have devised a testing methodology that will give us the maximum amount of data. While this means that testing each drive will take considerably longer – easily up 36 hours – the overall picture that we can gather is bigger too. It helps both you as the reader and us as the reviewer’s to gain a clearer view of the drive’s overall performance, strengths, and weaknesses. It also provides a more accurate analysis of how each drive performs under different conditions. Data Fillage There are many ways to test a storage drive, and we have chosen to include close to every test possible. We will start with a typical benchmark analysis of the formatted drive with various fillage scenarios. However, depending on how a drive is built, the performance may differ depending on how much data it is already storing. For this area, the drive will be tested empty as well as with 25%, 50%, and 75% space usage. We're using Anvil’s Storage Utilities, AS SSD Benchmark, ATTO Benchmark, and CrystalDiskMark for this part of the review. Application and Gaming Besides the synthetic fill tests, the drive is tested with PCMark 8’s storage benchmark to get real-world performance results for various gaming and application usages. PCMark 10 Storage Benchmarks have also been added now that they're available. Plain Drive Performance Following the fillage tests, the partition gets removed, and we check the drive’s raw performance. These tests will determine the hardware’s capabilities while eliminating any interference from the set file system. AIDA64’s storage benchmark is a great tool for this, and it helps us paint an even clearer picture of the drive. Drive Conditioning Durability is a vital factor when it comes to NAND-based drives as the chips only can be rewritten so many times before they’ll stop working properly. Modern SSDs come with wear-level algorithms to increase the lifetime and reduce this factor as much as possible. We also take this into consideration in our reviews even though it would take years to simulate this under real-world conditions. Luckily, Anvil’s Storage Utilities comes with an endurance test that can perform this action much faster, but it is still a time-consuming process. Depending on the hardware, this can easily take several days, and we write thousands and thousands of small files in various sizes and compressibility to drive over and over. Following this conditioning process, all of the previous benchmarks will be run again in the same scenarios and the same order. This will give us a great view of how a drive will perform after prolonged usage, and that is a very vital factor when you pick out your storage drive. The Preparation and In Between The drive will be formatted as NTFS with default settings, as most users will do. The quick format option isn’t used as that might affect the performance the first time data is written. Modern operating systems all take care of the TRIM command in the background and it isn’t something to worry about for regular users. However, for these reviews, I will add a waiting period between each benchmark to make sure that the TRIM command has been fully executed and finished. After all, we want a clear picture of the drive’s performance with minimal interference from the operating system. On each page that follows with the benchmark results, I have inserted result screenshots from the benchmarks, created drive analysis chart for the fill-level performance, and added drive comparison charts where possible. Hardware MSI MEG X570 GodlikeAMD Ryzen 7 3800XASUS ROG Strix RX570Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400MHz (4x8GB)Toshiba OCZ VX500 512GB SSDbe quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 (1200W)Noctua NH-D15SCooler Master HAF XB EVO with Noctua NF-A14 FLX fans Software AIDA64 Storage Benchmark Anvil's Storage UtilitiesAS SSD BenchmarkATTO BenchmarkCrystalDiskMarkPCMark 8 Storage BenchmarkPCMark 10 Storage BenchmarkWindows 10 AIDA64 Storage Benchmark AIDA64 is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users with a broad range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. The app has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives and is compatible with most Microsoft Windows operating systems. It also has a disk benchmark tool, and that is the one I’ll be using. Fresh Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives us a view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access Time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Conditioned Drive The Linear Read and Write tests measure the sequential performance by reading or writing all sectors without skipping any. It gives us a view of the drives overall performance from start to end. The Random Read and Write tests measure the random performance by reading or writing variable-sized data blocks at random locations on the surface of the drive. The Random tests are a combination of both speed and access times as it moves the position before each new operation. The Access time tests are designed to measure the data access performance by reading or writing small 0.5KB data blocks at random locations on the drive surface. Drive Analysis Anvil's Storage Benchmark Anvil’s Storage Utilities is a complete benchmark solution used to test any writeable storage drive. It also has a drive endurance test that consistently reads and writes data to the selected medium to deliver days, months, and potentially even years of use in a shorter period. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. AS SSD Storage Benchmark The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD, and they aren’t using the operating system cache. The copy tests are cached and as such not viable results at this time. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. ATTO Disk Benchmark The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customise your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD and SSD benchmark utility that allows you to measure a drive’s sequential and random performance. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Analysis With the performance analysis, we get a good view of the drive’s consistency. We want as straight a line as possible for a good result. Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark PCMark 8 Storage benchmark tests the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and SSHD hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of games. You can test any recognised storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark PCMark 10 also features a storage benchmark test now, so it's only fitting that we include this in our reviews too. There are several tests available and I will include both the Full System Drive Benchmark and the Data Drive Benchmark. Fresh Drive Conditioned Drive Drive Comparison For the drive comparison, we will use the performance figures from empty drives here. How Much Does it Cost? The Corsair MP400 won't break too many budgets with its pricing, mainly due to the fact that it uses QLC NAND. At the time of this review, you can get the reviewed 2TB model for £225.46 and $244.99. Overview It is always difficult to find a lot to say about an SSD at this point. After all, a drive doesn't have as many aspects as other hardware. But there are a few things which we can talk about. After all, not every drive is built the same. Corsair did a great job with the MP400. Not only is it available from a common size option of 1TB and all the way up to 8TB. Granted, at the time of this review, the largest version available on Amazon was the 4TB, but still. It's just a matter of time before they get stock and the large version is listed. Corsair also did a good job with the design, keeping it simple yet beautiful. The PCB is black and so is the label on top, giving it a unified look for the event that it's visible in your build. Performance Performance-wise, the Corsair MP400 did well too, delivering nice results that anyone will like. Granted, once we get past the cache, the QLC doesn't deliver as well when writing as TLC, but most people will rarely get to that situation. So whether it is for your OS or just as a backup drive or for your steam library, the drive will deliver as promised. It is also backed by a 5-year warranty which is great on any day, just in case. Should I Buy One? Do you need a lot of capacity in a small form factor? Is it within the range of your budget? Then yes, go for it. I can't give you any reason not to buy it, only a lot of reasons to buy it. It does the job it's meant to and it does it well for a fair price. Pros Available from 1TB to 8TB (4TB at the time of writing)Good performanceFair pricedSimple black look which will fit most system designsHigh compatibility through M.2 2280 form factor5-Year warranty Cons Write performance drops after the cache is used "Corsair MP400 offers you a lot of capacity at a fair price, everything you'll want in an SSD. And it is tiny at that, being an M.2 2280 module." Corsair MP400 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review Thank you Corsair for providing us with this sample.