Our testing shows that the Corsair F40 40GB SSD’s are drives you need to pay attention to, especially as they are delivering the same levels of performance as larger drives in the Sandforce family. Many smaller solid state drives perform much slower than their bigger family members due to reductions in Flash IC count.
The Corsair F40 40GB drives do not pay any speed penalty.
Read and write performance is as good as we would expect from a Sandforce drive with the added benefit of incredibly competitive pricing. These drives are retailing for under £100 each (inc VAT) in the UK right now which means that for under £200 you could be running a system capable of delivering sustained rates of around 500mb/s, real world. It makes me wonder why more people aren’t opting for a Raid solution rather than a larger single drive.
When we look at single drive pricing, a Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB retails for around £260 in the UK, the same goes for the 120GB Vertex 2 units from OCZ. Two of these Corsair F40 40GB units in Raid 0 not only mean you would be saving around £70, but you would be getting significantly faster read and write speeds. Granted you lose some capacity, but I have been able to run many systems with a single 40GB unit as a boot drive.
Two in Raid 0 is such a tempting proposition for a lightning quick boot drive in Windows 7. Those of you still unfortunate enough to be running a mechanical drive for Windows 7 boot could be reducing your start up time from over a minute to 22 seconds, as our testing shows.
We love the Intel X25-V 40GB drives, but these Corsair F40′s are much faster, and our testing shows that if you want an SSD solution and have £200 in your pocket then this is the best performance configuration on the market right now, without question.
KitGuru says: Raid 0 with Corsair F40 is delicious, if you have the funds, make sure to give it a whirl because we are confident you won’t be disappointed.
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August 11, 2010
#1
over half a gigabyte per second performance rates, hilarious. love it ! I remember when getting 30mb/s was considered awesome and it cost more than these.
August 11, 2010
#2
Damn Zardon do you ever sleep buddy? Great article and this seems to be a sweet price to performance point, under 200 for this? yes please. Sandforce controller is a very well balanced solution.
August 11, 2010
#3
Very good too see such amazing performance and at such a modest price considering. I agree with the conclusion ‘delicious’ comment. it really is such a sweet time to buy technology.
August 11, 2010
#4
These make a nice combination. whats next? four drives ? :p
August 11, 2010
#5
Dear god man, give me some of that lovely hardware you get daily, its not fair!
August 11, 2010
#6
OMG, my dreams have been answered I was wanting this EXACT review for a week now. This is my next purchase, but I do need to stop reading this site, I get envy with all the wicked products you get.
August 11, 2010
#7
It is interesting to see the real world tests at the end, its hard to really measure real world tests with such a configuration, as even a 500 MEG video file would be copied as you just dragged it.
August 11, 2010
#8
Under £200, that is awesome. 40gb is a bit too small I think, so its nice you double the size and performance. will get these from OCUK.
August 11, 2010
#9
two SSDs reviews in a day? spolit for choice
August 11, 2010
#10
Sandforce controller is wicked. now we need a raid 0 review of the 256 GB Crucial REALSSDs
only 1k of SSD, bargain !
August 11, 2010
#11
It is refreshing to see that performance isnt butchered due to going for a small size. sandforce rocks.
August 11, 2010
#12
Lovely, but I need a new video card first. will be next on my list, but single drive is enough for me,.
August 11, 2010
#13
I was waiting for the crucial drives to come out at this size, but the marvell controller will not scale well at this size I dont think. 128gb for instance is poor compared to 256 unit.
August 11, 2010
#14
Well that was rather interesting, over 500mb/s? wtf, speechless. not too shabby for 190 quid.
August 11, 2010
#15
Corsair make such brilliant products, love their power supplies too. Waiting on a 850W review
August 11, 2010
#16
Wow thats killer performance aint it ? Price is great. I dont think I would buy a single drive after reading this. raid 0 seems the way to go.
August 11, 2010
#17
The intel drives have dropped in price, probably since these came out
August 11, 2010
#18
Corsair have a good product here, seems the price point is good also. I wonder how they are selling, I dont know anyone who has bought an ssd.
August 11, 2010
#19
SSDs are finally becoming affordable. they really DO make a huge difference, I always thought it was nonsense until I bought one for my laptop. it makes it feel like a new machine.
August 11, 2010
#20
Anyone here got one of these drives, id like another opinion
August 11, 2010
#21
Good on Corsair, its forced the price of the intel drives another £10
August 11, 2010
#22
Are SSDs really that big a deal? I can generate wait a few seconds.
August 11, 2010
#23
It depends how much you use your computer and what you are doing on it. for surfing the net, and random things, might be not needed, but if you are seriously using it, its like one of the best upgrades you can give it.
August 11, 2010
#24
I hear corsair are working on a new controller with indilinx. any truth in this?
August 12, 2010
#25
what about performance detoriating?
with RAID,trim is not possiblle…
August 12, 2010
#26
I guess reinstalls would need to be taken into consideration for systems with this. That said, I think for the audience with the knowledge to Raid 0 drives they would reinstall their OS after a few months anyway. I know I do. every 4 months or so.
August 12, 2010
#27
Actually Intel did release support for TRIM in raid o or raid 1. Not sure about these corsair units.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/03/23/intel-releases-trim-for-raid/1
August 13, 2010
#28
Tigerdirect has these on sale right now for $99.99 after $30 mail in rebate. I’m picking one up tonight.
Thanks for the review..