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Corsair P256 SSD review

V

VaultDweller

Member
It's not new (posted on April 10), but Legit Reviews has a review of the new Corsair P256 SSD that I haven't seen discussed here. The drive uses a Samsung controller and Flash, and comes with a 256 GB capacity. It's cheaper than the G.SKILL Falcon and OCZ Vertex drives of comparable size, but it doesn't look like smaller capacities are available.

The interesting (aka small random write) results are on page 5 and 7. HD Tune shows 4KB writes at ~9 MB/s and CrystalMark shows ~7 MB/s. Test results from the Vertex and X25-M aren't provided for direct comparison (WTF?), but if we use the numbers from Anand's SSD Anthology as a rough comparison, that's 3-4x the speed of the Vertex. Still well short of the X25-M, but no slouch nonetheless.

Looks promising, at the very least. The SSD arena is becoming very hotly contested, and I like that.

Anyone else have any thoughts?
 
Other OEMS (G.skill, Super Talent) elected for the Indilinix controller instead. OCZ built a lot of hype for the former and gave up on the idea of the Samsung controller (with their Summit line).

The Samsung falls behind on most benchmarks other than some of the sequentials, I think that was the main reason it got left behind in a trash heap. It's still a good drive...just 3rd place.

 
I know, I'd really like a mainstream review site to give it a shakedown. Get some performance data and controller confirmation on it.
 
Originally posted by: geoffry
If you wanted this in a smaller capacity, I believe the Kingston V-series just released late last week use the same controller (I haven't heard confirmation anywhere yet though).

http://www.kingston.com/ssd/v-series.asp?id=1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820139006

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820139007

No idea on how much cache it has either.
Click to expand...

I remember emailing the Kingston guys about this, but the V-line uses the First generation Samsung controller, similar to what Corsair uses in their 128GB drive (Corsairs 64GB uses Jmicron)

The Corsair P256 and the OCZ Summit Line are currently the only 2nd Gen Samsung controller SSDs
 
Originally posted by: Icewind31
Originally posted by: geoffry
If you wanted this in a smaller capacity, I believe the Kingston V-series just released late last week use the same controller (I haven't heard confirmation anywhere yet though).

http://www.kingston.com/ssd/v-series.asp?id=1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820139006

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820139007

No idea on how much cache it has either.
Click to expand...

I remember emailing the Kingston guys about this, but the V-line uses the First generation Samsung controller, similar to what Corsair uses in their 128GB drive (Corsairs 64GB uses Jmicron)

The Corsair P256 and the OCZ Summit Line are currently the only 2nd Gen Samsung controller SSDs
Click to expand...

Correct.

I tracked down a review (Of the samsung first gen controller) and it doesn't seem too overwhelming performance-wise(the kingston).
 
Originally posted by: Astrallite
Tech Report has a new review that has the Samsung controller coming out on top over the Vertex. OCZ is also going forward with the Summit now and are placing it above the Vertex.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16848
Click to expand...

Gah! I wish I saw this earlier, I just ordered a Vertex 120 thinking it was the best for the price due to the specs and review sites benchmarks. Come to find out the X25-M smokes it in basically everything but the synthetic tests (which is what a lot of other places were using). The 80GB is less than the Vertex 120GB in price as well. Hmmm what to do, I am temped to send it back (once I get it). 😕
 
Originally posted by: vhx
Originally posted by: Astrallite
Tech Report has a new review that has the Samsung controller coming out on top over the Vertex. OCZ is also going forward with the Summit now and are placing it above the Vertex.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16848
Click to expand...

Gah! I wish I saw this earlier, I just ordered a Vertex 120 thinking it was the best for the price due to the specs and review sites benchmarks. Come to find out the X25-M smokes it in basically everything but the synthetic tests (which is what a lot of other places were using). The 80GB is less than the Vertex 120GB in price as well. Hmmm what to do, I am temped to send it back (once I get it). 😕
Click to expand...

They're all in a "used"state, but Samsung drives have a cleaner function to slowly clean the drives of deleted data in idle mode. That throws the benchmarks in samsung's favor. Now, if you used a Vertex with the wiper and compared it to the samsung's "cleaned" drive, then the benchmarks will be seen in a fairer light.

The X25m is still the fastest drive. If you want speed over capacity, then go for the intel. Also, some of the results look strange. Compared to Anand's boot time review, the techreport boot times seem a little off, mainly the velociraptor's performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/stora...owdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=29
 
Yeah, I am not sure what to do really. Used or not, the speeds differences are quite significant. The tests were done in XP and I am sure similar performance will happen in future Windows. However I am not sure how the newest Vertex firmware improves the speed compared to the 1275 that was tested, I doubt much though. Also the Vertex currently support TRIM, but still in it's BETA stages, but most likely Intel will support it sometime in the future as well.

Unfortunately I can't return the Vertex drive. So it comes down to living with a slower drive or buy the faster drive and lose money on eBay fees trying to sell the Vertex.

Then again the testing process Techreport used could have some issues, I'll look into this more before I decide what to do.
 
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